


Stupid & Barely Special

by Signel_chan



Series: S&BS-verse [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Babies, F/M, Family, The Importance of Birthdays, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 64,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signel_chan/pseuds/Signel_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living life with overbearing and protective parents makes for children ready to lie to get what they want. For two boys who have the power to legally bind others in marriage, this can only end in disaster. Or, at least, it can end in Brady possibly marrying Severa without giving so much as a hint to being with her to his mother. Which might be worse than a disaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impulse Marriages

There was something about the knocking on the door that seemed urgent, something that made it sound like whoever was doing it really had important news to share. And if it weren’t for the fact that he could hear the person’s voice calling for him every few seconds, it would have been possible for Brady to think that the person was there for important reasons. But thanks to having heard that voice every day for the entirety of his life, he knew that no matter what it was, there was nothing important that his mother could possibly be needing to share with him. So, naturally, he ignored her knocks and continued staring at himself in the mirror of the tiny dressing room, glaring at his reflection and simply how _dumb_ he felt he looked wearing a suit on just a normal day of the week.

“Brady, dearest, are you going to be done in there anytime soon?” The voice was shrill as always, and based on how loud it was, he could guess that his mother was pressed up against the door, ceasing her knocking to try talking instead. “Everyone is beginning to show up, and it looks very bad for the guest of honor to be unavailable…”

He gave a deep sigh, eyebrows still furrowed in anger at his reflection. There were so many things he wanted to say, both to himself and to his mother, but he kept them in, choosing only to glare at what she had insisted he wear for the event. “I’ll be out soon, Ma,” he finally said, sighing again as he ran a hand over his heavily gelled, almost frozen, blue hair. He couldn’t do a thing about what he had to wear, but his mother had no choice but to go along with what he chose to do with his hair.

“That’s lovely to hear! I’m sure your father is quite tired of having to answer people asking where we both are. You know, a young man only turns twenty-one once, and it is a tremendous honor to be allowed to celebrate you on this day.” He could hear his mother sniffle, overcome by emotions related to her son finally being the age to do virtually anything. “More people have shown up already today than when your sister became of age.” Another sniffle, followed by a loud chuckle. “Oh how she must be jealous of the attention you’ll be showered with here today!”

“Really doubt that, but okay. Lucy don’t care about this kind of thing, especially not enough to get jealous.” Thinking about his sister, Brady was caught a bit by surprise when he heard the doorknob to the closet-like dressing room he was secluded in start rattling. “Hey, me sayin’ she wouldn’t be jealous isn’t any reason to be tryin’ to break in, Ma!”

Sputtering a bit at the accusation, his mom replied, “It is most certainly not me trying to get in there! That honor belongs to that no-good—er, I mean, that _charming_ cousin of yours.”

“Thanks for the lovely vote of confidence there, Aunt Maribelle,” Owain could be heard saying, before resuming tugging at the doorknob. “Lemme in, Brady! We need to discuss something more important than anything else that may happen today!” Now Brady was typically not one to ignore his mom, but keeping himself locked in the room was doing just that; opening the door only to let Owain squeeze in, before slamming it shut in his mom’s face, was another instance. “Good, you actually listened to me on this matter.”

“Hush your voice,” Brady snapped, staring at the door, where he knew his mom was still standing and most likely fuming on the other side.  “Don’t need her overhearin’ every damn thing you feel you’ve got to tell me.”

“I don’t feel like I have to tell you anything,” Owain retorted, his voice barely above a whisper. “I actually _do_ have to tell you something. Well, technically, it’s ask you something, but specifics aren’t necessary on that wording.”

“Well get to it, before Ma out there tries gettin' in here to pull me out.” Hearing the knocking start once more, Brady took his eyes from being focused on the door to staring right into his cousin’s face (not a hard feat, as the room they were in was barely big enough for the two of them). “Givin’ ya like five seconds to say whatever it is.”

Opening his mouth to speak, just to close it again when he realized he didn’t know how to word what he was saying, Owain waited until Brady was reaching for the doorknob to finally put an end to the nonsense to say his piece. “Don’t open the door quite yet! Your persuasive tactics have broken me to the point of being ready to share this with you!” His voice had raised just enough to catch Maribelle’s attention on the other side of the door, causing her to cease her knocks, to which he gasped and covered his mouth with one hand. “Shouldn’t have gotten so careless with that exclamation,” he mumbled, eyes going wide. “At least I didn’t yell out the important part.”

“Seriously, she’s not going to just let us sit here and chat all day. Say what you’ve got to say and then beat it, because it’s clearly an important day ‘round here and she’s not going to let ya take up all my time.” Once again, Brady was reaching for the doorknob, but his cousin grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

As quietly as he could manage, Owain said, “Brady, my most dearest cousin who loves me like a brother, I need you to do something for me. I need you to use your righteous powers within the church and tie me and someone dear to me together in the bonds of holy matrimony or whatever it’s called.”

“You want me to do _what_?” He wasn’t asking for clarification, because even with the words being said in a quiet voice, Brady had heard every last syllable, and he knew where the request was coming from. When he had turned eighteen, he had elected to become an ordained minister within his church (although there had been very heavy involvement from Maribelle leading up to that decision), and this was done with the purpose of someday being able to preside over the weddings of his close friends and family members. He had completely expected Owain to come to him with this question someday, but not while they were still so young, and definitely not in the closet-slash-dressing room of the church. “Dude, you sure you want me doin’ that for ya?”

“I wouldn’t be asking you here if I didn’t. I’ve really been thinking about it, and…” Owain took in a deep breath, uncovering his mouth to allow his voice to be a little less muffled. “It’s what’s best for me and Noire right now. She’s stuck with her crazy mom until she’s married, and I’m stuck living with my parents until I’m married, and this just means we can both get out and be together. It’s foolproof!”

“What’s foolproof?” Hearing the last two words, Maribelle had pressed herself up against the door and was trying to eavesdrop. “You boys better not be discussing anything that would not be approved of! This is a sacred place that we are in right now!”

“We’re not talkin’ about anything ya wouldn’t approve of, Ma,” Brady started, but before he could tack on that they were talking about something she had intended for years ago, Owain shushed him, squeezing his arm tightly. “Hey! What gives? I’m speakin’ the truth!”

At the same time that Maribelle gave some lament under her breath about how her son spoke like an uneducated fool, Owain shot his cousin a wide-eyed, worried look and said, “The truth, sure, but can you imagine the horror if your mother found out I just asked you to do this for me? She’d go straight to my mother, and I don’t need her knowing about this!”

“Hold on, she’s not going to know you’re gettin' married to your girlfriend?” Brady made sure to keep his voice low, and judging by how he could still hear his mom going on about how she hated how he spoke, she wasn’t overhearing him at all. “You can’t have a wedding without your mom there, dude. I’m not allowin’ that.”

“If we involve her, she’ll want to make sure it’s a big deal, and I don’t want that. We don’t need that, not right now. This is just so that Noire and I can live together and be on our own.” Owain let go of Brady’s arm and used that hand to instead scratch the back of his head in a bout of sheepishness. “You’ve got to do this for me. I’ll pay you back somehow for this, if you’ll just help me out here!”

Brady looked at his cousin, at how desperate he seemed to be for this, and gave a deep sigh. “Ya know what, let me think on this a bit, and I’ll get back with an answer. It’s not right to drop something like this on a guy when he’s already got so much goin’ on.” Owain gave a smile and a silent thank you, knowing that the answer was better than a straight-up no, and that was when the door finally opened and the two boys filed out of the small room, Maribelle still waiting for them on the other side. She took one glance at her son, ignoring his companion entirely, and wrapped him in the biggest hug she could manage, her head pressing up against his chest. “Er, Ma, you’re actin’ like you’ve never seen me dressed up before or something.”

She proceeded to hug him a bit tighter, causing him to gasp for air in her grasp. “I’ve seen you dressed up many times, but this time is so much more special than most of those other instances.” Letting go and stepping back, she examined him from head to toe, eyes lingering on how he had chosen to style his hair. “You really should have done something different with your hair today. No need for something so dull on a day like today.”

“Figured you’d have something to say about my hair,” he replied, putting a hand to his head, feeling the stiff hair beneath his fingers. “Too bad that I’m not doing anything to change it. You got me into the suit, so I get my hair the way I want it, Ma.”

Still standing beside the two, Owain cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Come on, he’s an adult, Aunt Maribelle! Let him live his life the way he wants!”

“Says the boy who is only here today because his mother brought him, kicking and screaming the whole way, I presume.” She stopped staring at her son just to turn to Owain to give him a stern look, as he dropped his hands and gave an awkward shrug. “By all means, I fully expected her to show up alone today, knowing how you and your father both feel about these ‘high-class’ events that this family puts on. Your attire shows your lack of caring, by the way.” She was, of course, referring to the fact that, while she was in a rather formal dress and Brady was standing there in a suit, Owain was wearing a pair of stained jeans and a wrinkled shirt that looked like it had just come out of a pile on the floor. “Still, you showing up shows that you have _some_ care about your family.”

“I care about my cousin, and since it’s his birthday, I figured I’d come and celebrate with him. Mom never mentioned that it was a fancy party at the church.” Shrugging again, Owain leaned a little bit to one side to look past where his aunt and cousin were standing, hoping to see anyone out in the entryway of the building. When his eyes lit up and he stood back straight, it was clear he had found someone. “Sorry to disappear on you like this,” he said, taking a few steps away, “but I think I just saw my mom and I’d rather spend time talking to her than being complained at by you, Aunt Maribelle.” He flashed a smile as his aunt started trying to come up with a response, and before they knew it he was gone.

“He made like a pair of old pants and split, didn’t he?” Brady asked, watching his mom still reeling about what Owain had said. He knew he was going to have to thank his cousin for that beautiful display at a later point, preferably one where no one would be around to hear them talking. When he saw her turning red from anger, he knew that he needed to do something about it, but badmouthing his cousin to get back at him, which he knew she would have loved to have heard, wasn’t anything he felt up to doing. “C’mon Ma, let’s go find some people to talk to that aren’t each other. Maybe Lucy’s around, and we haven’t seen her in a few days, so maybe she’s got something cool and nerdy to talk to us about.”

“We are not going to spend your birthday indulging your sister in nerd talk, but I understand where you’re going with that idea. We definitely should go mingle with the guests who have gathered here today for your birthday celebration.” Taking a few deep breaths to restore normal color to her face, Maribelle smiled at Brady, who reluctantly smiled back at her. “Oh, don’t look so displeased to be here. I know you aren’t one for being the center of attention when you’re doing anything but play the violin, but today is the one day of the year where you’re meant to be the topic of discussion!”

He cringed at how excited she sounded about pushing him out of his comfort zone and into the spotlight, but after twenty-one long years of living with her, he knew that the only way to deal with her was to go along with what she wanted. That meant that she led him into the entry area of the church, where chairs and tables had been set up for the occasion, and forced him to stand near the stained-glass doors to the building as she called everyone to attention, to remind them all why they had gathered there today. As she was busy yelling and trying to be heard over all the conversations happening, he took the opportunity to look around and see who really had shown up.

The first person he saw was Owain, who actually had gone and found his mom; they were both looking in his direction and when she noticed that he was looking at her, Lissa gave him a small wave, which he returned. Moving on, he saw his father and sister sitting at one of the tables, in the middle of some discussion that was not getting interrupted by the calls to attention. Right next to Lucina was her boyfriend, someone he didn’t even recognize at first until he caught a glimpse of the guy’s face and realized he was the normally hat-wearing guy Lucina had been dating for years and years. He seemed to be as invested in the conversation between her and her father as the two participants were, which made Brady wonder if it was actually something interesting or if it was boring like their conversations tended to be.

A fair number of the people who were there weren’t people he recognized, mostly due to the fact that it had been his mother who had put this all together, and she would have only invited people she knew and cared to show off to. He did see some of the other city officials that worked alongside his father, all sitting off to the side talking between themselves, and his first thought when he saw them was to ask why notable people like the head of police and high ranking officers were at his birthday celebration; once he remembered that he was the son of the mayor and one of the city’s magistrates, it made a lot more sense to him. They were there to keep up appearances, nothing more and nothing less.

By the time Maribelle had gotten everyone focused on her so she could talk everyone’s ears off, he’d looked around the whole room twice and made eye contact with nearly everyone, minus a few people who seemed to care very little about what was happening. One of those people, sitting alone in the corner, caught him by complete surprise to see, and the second he was able to move around and go talk to people on his own, he was headed straight to her side. “Wasn’t aware I invited you today,” he said, pulling up a chair beside hers. “Pretty sure I won’t supposed to do that.”

“I came as a guest of my mother’s, actually,” the girl replied, looking at him and flipping one of her long orange pigtails off of her shoulder. “She just had to be here, and since she’s not one to associate with my father in public, I came with her. Worked out that way.” The corners of her mouth turned up in a small smile. “Happy birthday, by the way. Wish we could spend it together somewhere that isn’t here.”

“You’re tellin’ me, Sev. We’ll get to spend time together tomorrow or something, I’m sure.” The way she was smiling at him was enough to get him to crack a grin of his own, one that quickly faded when he remembered where he was. “Hey, can’t be doin’ that to me here. If Ma sees me talkin’ to ya, she’ll start askin’ questions.”

“Seriously? Your mother still doesn’t know about me? About _us_?” Her smile disappeared as well, replaced with a scowl. “What’s the problem with telling her that you’ve got a girlfriend, huh? You think she’ll grill me to the ends of the earth and back? I’m not scared of her. I’ve got an officer for a mother. I can handle some stupid questioning.”

He gave a forced laugh, but quickly went into panic mode when she started to stand up, the intent of going to Maribelle and telling her things clear in her eyes. “Severa, please don’t do anything! She’ll make a huge scene of it, and trust me, you’re not wanting to cause nothing today.” He watched as she paused to consider his words, before she shrugged them off and finished getting to her feet. “Please, I’m beggin’ ya, don’t do it.”

“Gods, you’re so scared of what your mom would think of me. It’s almost like she’s got her grown son just wrapped around her finger, making sure he’ll only do whatever pleases her.” Severa stuck her tongue out at Brady, the silver bauble that pierced it catching right in front of her teeth, something that made him cringe to look at. She saw his reaction and snorted. “Oh, right, I’m too rough-around-the-edges for her, aren’t I? Can’t let the mayor’s little boy be associated with some criminal’s child, can she?”

“That’s not it at all,” he started, before realizing that it was exactly that. He had been brought up in one of the most prominent families in the city, raised by two people that had power and respect by the townsfolk. She, on the other hand, was the child of someone who enforced the law and someone who quite frequently broke it—he had heard his mother talk about Severa’s father many times, about how he was always ending up in her court, and she never once had anything nice to say about him. How would Maribelle handle it if she found out that her precious son was dating the daughter of that man? “Okay, maybe it’s that a little bit, but we’re not going to drop that bombshell on Ma today.”

“So what, do you expect me to just sit here and act like I don’t know you, like you aren’t the guy that means the world to me?” Now flipping her other pigtail away, Severa huffed when Brady gave her a quiet yes in response. “Come on, that’s not how things are supposed to work. We shouldn’t be forced to be private with our relationship. Your parents can just deal with it that we’re together.”

He got to his feet, hugging her once he was standing. “I’ll think of some way to tell ‘em that we’re a thing. Not today, though. Can’t do that to Ma, not when she’s done so much to make this day perfect for…well, me.” He let go of her, stepping back a bit and looking down into her eyes that were shining with anger. “Hey, Sev, don’t be like that. I’m promisin’ ya, we’ll be able to be together and public about it soon enough. Just as long as that don’t mean we’ll be gettin' kissy in front of people.”

“Ew, no way. Showing affection in front of others is one of the dumbest things in the world.” Despite that, she leaned up onto her tip-toes and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Go on and do whatever stupid stuff your mom wants you to do today. We’ll definitely have to do something for us sometime soon.”

Brady rubbed at where she had just kissed him, his face heating up underneath his hand. “Er, yeah, definitely going to have to do that. Sorry that we can’t be seen together today.”

“It’s no big deal. Like you said, you weren’t supposed to invite me, yet here I am, crashing your party or whatever the hell this is supposed to be. It looks like a city officials meeting with a few strangers.” She sat back in her chair, kicking her feet up into the one he had drawn for himself. “Some party this is. Glad I’m not meant to be here.”

He couldn’t help but crack a smile at her comment. “Yeah, sure is great that you’re not meant to be here, but that you showed up anyway. Thanks for understandin’ why you weren’t invited and all that, because let me tell you, if Ma had found out I was invitin’ a girl that she don’t know to my party…man, I’d never hear the end of it!”

“Uh huh, I’m sure that’s exactly the case.” Severa turned her head to look over at some of the other people who had gathered, and she gasped and started pointing at someone, worrying Brady to the point that he hurriedly turned and expected to see his mother standing behind him. But when there was no one there and he was looking like a fool, she started laughing. “Oh man, got you good on that one! Do you _really_ think I’d start overreacting if someone was headed this way? I’m not scared of showing your mom what kind of ladies you like.”

“That makes one of us,” he mumbled, still rubbing at his face while simultaneously trying to calm himself down from that scare. “Just don’t be gettin’ into any trouble today and drawin’ attention to the fact that you’re here, got it? Ma won’t worry too much about someone comin’ along with one of her friends, but if you make things ‘bout you instead of me, then there’ll be problems that we don’t need to be dealin’ with today.”

“Problems like what? The fact that you’ve got to keep up appearances to keep looking like the perfect child your parents think you are?” She gave a dramatic sigh, rolling her eyes as she did. “Seriously, don’t worry about me causing any problems. I’ll just be sitting here, pining after you with every bit of my heart because you’re too dense to let your mom know that we’re together.”

He turned back around to look at her with the most serious expression he could muster, which only caused her to burst into laughter. “C’mon Sev, this isn’t any joking matter. Just behave and when we get the chance to do somethin’ alone together, I promise ya that we’ll do just that.”

“I believe you,” she told him, stifling more laughter, “but it’s so hard to take you seriously when you’re dressed up like you’re going to a funeral. It’s your birthday! Why are you doing this to yourself?” He would have loved to answer her with the honest truth, getting into detail about how it was entirely his mother’s idea, but he knew that every moment he stood there talking to her was risky. How could Brady talk so much about her needing to be careful about drawing attention to herself when him being there was automatically going to garner so much more attention?

After apologizing a couple of times and giving her a small hug, he set off to find someone else to talk to, two things heavy on his mind: one, when was he ever going to let his mother know that he was dating Severa; and two, what was he going to do about what Owain had come asking him about earlier in the day? Neither question was something he wanted to be worrying with on an already stressful day, but they were both important and meant more than they needed to.

Somewhere during the events of that day, between being re-introduced to people he’d met many times before and the public embarrassment that such a big birthday party entailed, Brady decided that he was going to take action on at least one of those questions. The fact that he felt it would be easier to assist his cousin than it would be to let Severa be seen through Maribelle’s judgmental eyes should have spoken novels on how he viewed his mother, but that was not what was important about the decision. The big part was that he was going to use his church-given powers in a way that his family would most definitely not approve of, and he was going to do it without any regrets.

When he got the chance to tell Owain about this decision, there wasn’t any time for celebration and excitement, for they went straight into getting things set up for what was to come. In utmost secrecy, with complete care as to not alert anyone who would ruin the hush-hush nature of the event, the preparations were made for the wedding over the course of a few weeks. What was assumed to be the most difficult part, acquiring a marriage license without anyone who would recognize the boys and their names being at the courthouse, went off without a hitch; therefore, on one brisk March morning, in the pale light resulting from the sunrise, the small ceremony went completely according to plan. Aside from the bride, the groom, and their officiant, there were only a couple others in attendance, a close friend of each of the participants and the girlfriend of their acting minister.

That afternoon was spent with the entirety of the wedding attendees going out and celebrating the secret union, and the night, after making sure that Owain’s parents weren’t around to know what was going on, was spent moving his belongings from his bedroom to his new home that he was going to now be sharing with his new wife. After everything was moved and the tracks were covered, it was time for the newlyweds to get to spend quality time together, and for everyone else to go back to their lives as if nothing had happened. For some of them, this would be an easy task, but for others, not so much.

* * *

Gathered in the dining room like they did every weekend for a family breakfast, it wasn’t even two days after the secret ceremony that news was being shared amongst the older members of the family. “So it turns out that all of Owain’s stuff is missing from his room,” Lissa said, picking at her fingernails as she spoke, “which leads me to believe he isn’t just ‘staying with a friend’ like we all thought he was.”

“I told you, that boy of yours wasn’t ever right in the head. What nerve, thinking it’s proper to just disappear from under his parents’ noses like that!” Shaking her head in disgust, Maribelle looked at Lissa, who was still fidgeting and messing with her hands. “Stop taking it out on yourself, dearie. Just because he felt it was okay to leave like this doesn’t mean that you deserve to scuff up your hands.”

Lissa gave a small nod, setting her hands down in her lap. “You’re right. But what else am I supposed to do? He hasn’t answered any calls, and we have no clue where he might have gone! The first place we thought he may have gone was here, but you would have told us right away if he was staying here!” She was visibly distressed at what she was talking about, to the point that a reassuring hand from the person next to her had to be placed on her shoulder, at which she leaned her head on it and sighed. “This is the worst thing that could ever have happened. Ever.”

“Now, now, Lissa, there are many worse things that could have happened.” Looking up at his sister from whatever work bulletin he was reading, Chrom managed a small smile in hopes that it would help calm her down. “After all, you’re fairly certain he’s still alive, right? He just left home without telling anyone. He didn’t flee the country, or find himself six feet under, or anything like that. He’s just on his own.”

No matter how helpful he was trying to be, Chrom only managed to make Lissa get more fidgety, the hand on her shoulder having to grip her harder. “Don’t listen to what he’s sayin’. We know he’s alive. Know it. Even if he ain’t bothered with tellin’ us where he’s gone, we know he’s fine.” Loosening how he was holding her a bit, Vaike tried to make eye contact with Lissa, but she had cast her eyes downward as they were beginning to well with tears. “Hey, none of that cryin’ business, okay? Sure, that boy shoulda told us he was doin’ anythin’ of this nature, but he’s got his mom’s smarts and his dad’s charmin’ personality, and those things’ll get him anywhere.”

Maribelle, cringing like she usually did whenever her brother-in-law was speaking, felt that she needed to add something to the conversation to try and make the situation better. “Those things could quite easily end with him in my court, especially since he felt it was a bright idea to leave without warning in the first place!” Within seconds, Lissa was actually crying and Vaike was trying his hardest to console her, which left Maribelle sitting across from them feeling like she had done the exact opposite of what she wanted to do.

“I d-don’t want him being out there, alone and in trouble,” Lissa choked out, covering her mouth, “because I don’t like knowing I’m a ba-a-ad mom!”

“You aren’t the bad parent in this situation, my dear.” It was said under her breath, but the fact that Maribelle shot a somewhat disgusted look in Vaike’s direction gave away what she had said and who it was about. He started shaking his head and went to stand up to come around the table to teach her a lesson, but Chrom loudly cleared his throat to stop them.

For a moment, they were in silence (minus the sniffling that Lissa was still doing), but then Chrom chose to speak. “Well, I can say with complete certainty that he’s alive. Not entirely sure how well the rest of this information is going to go over with you, but he’s alive.” Once again, the silence overcame everyone, until Lissa stopped crying long enough to ask her brother to elaborate on his point. “Er, I think it would be best if you read this for yourselves. It certainly answers why he’s left home, at any rate.”

“We’re all invested in this topic, so why don’t you just read it to everyone?” Maribelle smiled at Chrom, who was still looking at his work bulletin. “Besides, it’s not exactly lawful to let someone not in your position look at your documents, and I would hate to have to inform the city council about you doing that.”

He sighed. “Right, good on remembering the rules, Maribelle. Guess I’ll read this to everyone.” As he cleared his throat again to begin reading, footsteps coming down the stairs could be heard, and at the same time that he started to read, Brady poked his head into the dining room, trying to see what was going on. He went wide-eyed as he heard his father say, “According to this, which I have every reason to believe is true, it looks like Owain decided he’s a big adult now and got himself married without letting anyone know.”

“He did what?” both Lissa and Vaike asked, looking to each other to make sure they weren’t dreaming about what they just heard. After Chrom repeated it, she moved her other hand so that they both were covering her face, and he put a hand to his forehead as he thought about what that meant. “I can’t believe this,” she mumbled, voice barely audible. “So much for him having _my_ smarts, I guess.”

“Next time I see that boy, he’s gonna be gettin' an earful from his old man. Nobody goes behind the Vaike’s back to do things, especially not his own kid!” Vaike took a deep breath to calm himself, and before he got too deep into rambling, he happened to notice a blue head of hair pulling itself out of the room. “Hey, wait a second, you get in here!” Everyone else, confused at who he was yelling at, looked to the doorway, where Brady had frozen. “He might know somethin’ ‘bout all this that we don’t.”

“Are you insinuating that my son would be involved in your son’s foolish ideas? I happen to have raised my children very, very well, thank you very much.” Maribelle waved for Brady to come into the room, which he begrudgingly did, feet heavy with hesitation. “Now, dear, why don’t you let us all know what you know about Owain’s new life decision?”

“What I know…? Ma, I didn’t know a thing ‘til I overheard what you just heard!” Trying to lie to his mother was one of the hardest things Brady could think of doing, but he wasn’t going to tell her that he knew what had happened the moment that he did. “Trust me, if he’d told me he was plannin’ on getting married, I wouldn’t have let him. It’s not right to do that without making it a big family deal.” He kicked at the floor, clearly not wanting to be there. “Can I get goin’ now, Ma? Kinda got a friend to go meet with.”

“It’s not your cousin, is it?” Lissa asked, dropping her hands from over her mouth. He gave a quick shake of his head, and she looked slightly crestfallen. “Oh. Well, next time you see him, can you please pass on the message that his parents definitely miss him and that we’d love to talk to him about what he’s done?”

“Yeah, can do,” he replied, slowly backing away towards the door. “I’m just going to…get on out of here before I’m late.”

He was just about out of the room, out to safety, when he heard his uncle say, “Y’know, not judgin’ or anythin’, but it sounds a bit like Brady there’s got somethin’ he’s hidin’ from us all. Ain’t ever seen him that eager to go out and socialize.”

“In all honesty, that did catch me a bit by surprise too, but I trust him and his word.” That was Chrom speaking in response, and hearing his dad (wrongfully) defending his honor made Brady feel a bit of pride, something that was immediately squashed out of him when he heard what came next. “That being said, if he is hiding something from us, I would hope that he’ll come clean about it when the time comes, instead of us finding it out some other way.”

On the other side of the wall, Brady was about as pale as a ghost and was starting to tremble in fear of how they could find out that he had just lied to them. “He’s not a liar, something that I hope everyone here would know after having spent so much time with him!” Maribelle said, and despite not watching her, he knew she was most likely holding up a stern finger at the naysayers. “My precious little boy would have told us if he knew what was going on, and if you want to believe otherwise, you simply do not know him!”

“I think Maribelle’s right. Brady wouldn’t have just lied to us, he’s too good of a kid to do that. And I know Owain knows that…” Hearing his aunt’s voice trail off, Brady knew that she was going to suggest doing something that would get everyone off his back on the matter, and while he would have loved to have stuck around to hear it and sigh in relief, if he didn’t get out the door soon they’d begin to question if he really was leaving or not.

He was grabbing his jacket and keys, headed towards the front door when it opened in front of him, catching him by surprise. “Who goes there?” he stammered, still shaking from his lies and now startled by someone’s appearance. “I’m armed, ya know!”

“Gods, Brady, you’re such a scaredy-cat sometimes.” After he actually looked to see who had opened the door and was now standing in front of him, he was able to take a deep breath and calm himself a bit. “I know, I know, coming over unannounced isn’t the best plan, but I know everyone’s here and I’ve got to tell our parents something rather important.”

“Couldn’t ya have come at a better time, Lucy?” Now more comfortable with the situation, Brady stood as tall as he could and crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at his older sister with a slightly worried expression. “They’re talkin’ serious stuff in there. Owain’s done something really dumb.”

Lucina tilted her head to the side and smirked, a hint of their mother’s sass showing in her face. “Something dumb like getting married, I know,” she replied, her smirk growing a tiny bit. “It’s common knowledge to almost everyone now, I guess. What’s not as common, that I’m pleased to know because our cousin trusts me so much, is that _you_ knew of this before anyone else did.” That was when her smirk faltered, as her brother dropped his air of confidence and was shrinking down to more her size. “But I don’t know to what extent you knew things, since he wouldn’t tell me. I’m just here to share what I did learn.”

“Well great for ya, I guess. Bet whatever you’ve got to say, Aunt Lissa will love hearin’ it, especially if it means she knows he’s okay. Dude didn’t even bother lettin’ her know he was leavin’ before he did.” He looked at Lucina, who was clearly trying to figure something out in her mind. “What’re ya thinkin’ about? It’s not something I said, is it?”

“I just find it weird that I’ve seen and talked to him since this happened, yet you, someone incredibly close to him, haven’t. At least, he didn’t mention having been visited by you.” She put a finger to her lips in thought. “He could have withheld that information from me, knowing that I’d—where are you going?” Her abrupt change in thought came from him realizing she was onto him, and deciding right then to push past her and head out the door. “Brady! Get back here!” She chased him outside for a few steps, but as he was starting to run down the driveway faster than she’d ever seen him move, she realized following in pursuit was pointless. Instead, with a suspicion residing within her, she went back in the house, closing and locking the door behind her.

Standing there waiting for her, having heard her call after her brother, were her parents and aunt and uncle, all four of whom were looking to her with expectations of answering what had just happened. She looked back towards the door, fully prepared for him to be trying to get back in, but when there was nothing she knew that she had to answer to the family and drive some nails into the coffin that was her brother’s innocence in this matter.

* * *

“Okay, so they found out about it. Big deal. When I ran into Lucina yesterday, I told her what had happened, so that she could break it to my parents before anyone else did.” Leaning up against the wall in his mostly-bare living room, Owain shrugged at the out-of-breath Brady who was laying on the floor in front of him. “I, uh, figured you would appreciate someone else telling them before you did. Didn’t think you’d get so scared that you’d run the whole way here.”

“Wasn’t scared,” Brady corrected, his voice heavy with his pants and gasps for air. “Terrified. Never lied to Ma like that before. Didn’t wanna see how it turned out when Lucy told her what’s up.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you ran over here. It’s like five miles. I would have come and gotten you had I known.” Thinking for a second, he then recanted his statement: “Actually, maybe not. My parents would have known I was somewhere nearby and hunted me down.”

“So you’re allowed to be scared about what they’ll do to ya, but I can’t be terrified for lyin’ to Ma? She’s scary when she’s mad, Owain!” Brady lifted himself up off the floor just enough to realize he was still too tired to get up, and he promptly collapsed back down. “Granted, she’s only got her words about her. Your dad would find somethin’ blunt and beat us both with it, pretty sure.”

Owain stared off into space for quite a while after that, most likely processing what his cousin had just said, while Brady still lay there trying to find the energy within him to look like a normal person. During this time, the other occupant of the small apartment came out from where she was hiding, bringing with her a tray of freshly-baked cookies. “I, er, heard you two talking about people’s negative reactions and wanted to help somehow,” the soft and hesitant voice of Noire said, “and the best way I could think to help was to bake.” She looked between the two guys, neither of whom seemed to be paying attention to her, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone deeper and more terrifying. “I said, I baked for you ungrateful beasts!”

The sudden change in her behavior caught Brady off-guard, and he quickly pulled himself up from laying and into a sitting position, staring at her with worry. Owain, on the other hand, blinked a few times to bring himself back to reality, before seeing Noire standing there, cookies in hand and a scowl on her face. “Hey! How long did it take you to make those? They, well, smell absolutely delicious!”

“Really? Thanks!” All signs of her dark turn faded, and she was now smiling at Owain over her tray. “I started baking them when Brady got here. Thought it would be a nice gesture, to offer our guest something sweet.”

“Thanks, that is kinda nice, yeah.” Noire walked over to in front of Brady and bent down to offer him the tray, and he took one of the cookies off of it, noticing how perfectly round they all were. “Wow, you bake for a livin’ or something? These look professional, not like some girl in the kitchen bein’ nice.”

The look in Noire’s eyes, one that had been of joy at how kind they were being towards her baking, went cloudy at that backhanded compliment. “Just because I’m not a professional baker doesn’t mean I don’t know how to make things the best I can!” she hissed, pulling the tray away before Brady could take a second cookie. “You’re a horrible person and you have no place in my household!” She looked to be about to throw the tray straight at Brady’s face when Owain wrapped his arms around her and stopped her, not letting go of her until her expression went back to her kind one.

“You can’t be doing that to our guests,” he told her, loosening his grip but still having his arms around her, despite how confused she looked as to what she’d done to earn being held so tightly. “I get it, you’re still way too used to your mother’s cruel tactics against you, but this is a safe place and we care about you. Don’t slip into being mean just because someone like my cousin doesn’t know how to word things.”

“I s-slipped into being mean?” she asked, looking down at how the tray in her hands was shaking wildly, cookies falling off of it; when she looked up and saw how Brady was just staring at her in fear, she gasped. “Oh, I didn’t mean to! I must have scared him so much! I’m so sorry, Brady!”

Although he was still shaken at what had just transpired, he found it in himself to forgive her. “No big deal, Noire. Wasn’t anything worse than what Ma can dish out back home.” Just mentioning how his mother could punish him reminded him of why he was there at that moment, and he cast his eyes downward. “Like what’s comin’ to me whenever I get my sorry-self back home, honestly. Ma’s going to kill me since Lucy’s told her what’s up.”

“She won’t kill you, because she’ll have no reason to!” Owain laughed. “I made sure to only tell Lucina that you knew what had gone on, but I didn’t tell her that you were there, or that you were who ran things! Anything she says on that matter can’t be proven without paperwork, and trust me, I’m not stupid enough to show them that.”

“I don’t know, you were stupid enough to rush into gettin' married without tellin’ anyone, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you just kinda…let it slip that I’m the one who did the weddin’ for ya.” Sighing and closing his eyes, Brady wished with everything he had that the situation wouldn’t get any worse, that certain people would keep their word and no one would ever find out the extent of his involvement in the secret marriage.

And then the door to the apartment came flying open and an orange-pigtailed woman came storming in. “I _knew_ you’d be here, Brady!” Severa called out, not even caring to close the door she’d just rudely opened before going to her boyfriend’s side. “Your sister is super suspicious about your behavior, by the way. I told her to ignore it, but you know how she is. She’s always got to know what’s going on.”

“Severa? Who said you could come in?” Owain, letting go of Noire, shook a finger in the newcomer’s direction as she nestled herself up next to her boyfriend. “I cannot allow this. Us getting caught is one thing, but if you’re here, it only makes the situation stickier.”

“What, that I’m here because I’m madly in love with this guy here?” she replied, nudging Brady in the side a bit. He responded with a small groan of pain, and she giggled. “Trust me, Owain, I know exactly what I’m doing here. We’ve got maybe ten minutes before your parents come in and bust us all. Figured it would be polite to give that sort of warning.”

“Ten minutes?” Dropping his hand slowly as he processed what that meant, Owain gave a rather feminine scream and pulled both hands up to his hair, which he began tugging on. “Damn it, Severa! How are Noire and I supposed to pack up and move in _ten minutes_? Couldn’t you have given us more warning than this?”

She grinned at him, watching his freak-out as if it was something to be enjoyed. “I’m not here to warn you, dipshit. I’m here to warn Brady.” At that, she got back up to her feet and helped her reluctant boyfriend to his, making sure to kiss him on the cheek while his head was within her reach. “Can’t let him be implicated in all this,” she motioned to the mostly bare room and the married couple within it, “when his name’s still in the clear.”

“But you’re going to let us get in trouble for true love?” Watching as Severa was starting to make her break for it, Owain ran over and slammed the door closed. “I’m not going to let that happen. You told Lucina where we live, didn’t you? And she was going to go tell my parents about what happened today, so you’ve made her telling them into something bigger than it needed to be!”

“To be fair, I didn’t know she was telling your parents when I sent her this address. I figured, hey, it’s been a few days since we moved you in over here, maybe your other cousin would love to know where you are.” Severa giggled again, sounding very pleased with herself. “And now here we are, time ticking down before we all are punished for, as you called it, ‘true love.’ Isn’t that great?”

“Let them go.” Noire, standing back by the kitchen, looked to Owain with a scared expression on her face, but when he turned to face her and see if she meant what she said, all she did was repeat her words, followed by, “What they deserve will come to them eventually. That’s what I’ve learned from dealing with my mom. Karma gets back at people.”

He swallowed down a rebuttal, nodding at his wife before opening the door to the apartment. “Let’s hope Noire’s kindness really does lead to karma getting back at you guys. That’s more aimed at you, Severa, than anything.” The orange-haired woman laughed before bolting out of the apartment, and after exchanging a sad wave, Brady was following her, through the building and down the stairs out to the front steps.

“I can’t believe that worked,” she said, as she was hunched over catching her breath. “Didn’t think mentioning his parents showing up would let me get you out of there so easily.” It was odd for Brady to hear that, so he asked her to elaborate on her statement. “Do you really think I’m such a bitch that I told your sister where he lives? That would be cruel, even for me. I haven’t talked to her since she saw me at your birthday party.”

“Ya mean you just went up there and lied to my cousin to get me out of there? What if I wanted to be social with him today, huh? That ever cross your mind?” Brady would have loved to have gotten mad at Severa right there, but when he looked at her and saw her smiling up at him, he knew he couldn’t spare the effort. “Eh, ya know me too well I guess, Sev. I only came here because I had no clue where I’d be able to find you.”

“I had a hunch you’d be heading this way,” she explained, standing back up straight before descending down the cement stairs, “and when I saw you running for dear life I knew that I had to do something about it. Sure, I could have called you or something, and maybe barging into Owain and Noire’s apartment with such a bold-faced lie was a bitch move, but,” she threw her hands up and gave a wild gesture, “what else was I going to do? Heat of the moment, after all!”

He followed her down the stairs and soon they were just casually walking down the street, talking as they went. “I get ya, but think about how scared Owain’s got to be up there. He acts like he’s not worried ‘bout what his parents’ll do to him when they see him next, but he is. Sucks, since he works for his dad and all that, but that’s his problem. I wasn’t the one who told him to pull this stunt.”

“You sure weren’t, but you used a power that I didn’t even know you had to help him with it.” Under the shade of a tree in the cool morning air, Severa stopped walking, holding her arm out to stop Brady once he got to it. He gave her a confused look and she grinned. “And, thanks to some questions I asked when we were helping your cousin move his stuff, I know he’s got that same power.”

“Yeah, he sure does.” While Brady had been given his marriage-officiating powers through the church his mom had so heavily involved him in, Owain had gotten his own ordainment through an open-to-everyone online church he found one day, which was just as legally binding as anything the real church could have given him. He had done this to someday be of use to someone he cared about, much like Brady had, although one of their decisions heavily influenced the other’s. “Why does that matter to ya, Sev?”

She grinned a bit bigger, sticking out her tongue as she did, the metal ball sticking through it reflecting some of the shaded sunlight. “Marry me, Brady.”

He went through a variety of emotions as he words sunk in: first it was shock, his eyes going wide as he had never expected to hear someone say those words to him; this was followed directly by a feeling of wanting anything but her proposal, as he started to shake his head and look to anywhere but her grinning face; and finally, it was acceptance, when he stopped telling himself this was a bad idea. “Marry you? But we’re too young, don’t ya think? And Ma will murder me instantly if I take ya home right now and tell her we’re gettin' hitched.”

“That’s why you’re not going to tell her anything.” Dropping her grin, Severa took on a stern expression that looked deathly serious. “We’re going to do just like your cousin and have everything be under the table, down to the ceremony and you moving into my place. I’ve got it easy, since I don’t talk to my mom and my dad’s probably still in jail right now, and you’ve proven that you can lie to your parents if need be. So we’re going to do this to benefit us.”

“But I don’t like lyin’ to my parents,” Brady retorted, beginning to shake his head at the proposition again. “I can’t marry ya right now, Sev, I just can’t.”

She pursed her lips together and gave a huffy sigh. “I get it, you love your mom more than you love your girlfriend. It’s cool. I’ll just chalk the last, what, seven years of my life to being a huge waste.” Letting her shoulders drop, she flipped her hair behind her and resumed walking down the street, leaving him standing there wondering what he should do. Half of him was ready to turn around and head back to Owain’s place, but the other half wanted to follow her and continue talking through this idea. He wasn’t opposed to getting married to her, it was simply her method that he was against.

“Get back here, Sev!” he called, and while she turned to look at him, she had no intentions of stopping her movement, so he quickly caught up to her, grabbing both her shoulders and holding her in place once he could. “I’m not sayin’ that I don’t love you or anything like that. I just can’t marry you the same way Owain married Noire. It’s nothin’ but trouble to do it in secret like that.”

“Then you better get on introducing me to your parents, because we _are_ getting married, and we _are_ going to do this soon.” There was a force behind her words that made him simultaneously scared and slightly aroused, although he’d never admit to that second part, but by the way he inhaled deeply at what she said, she knew it had caused some sort of reaction. “Don’t you just love it when I get bossy with you? Now get to letting your precious mommy and daddy know that you’ve got me as your girlfriend—wait, no, your fiancée—or else there’ll be trouble.”

Brady gulped and nodded. “I’ll be right on it, Sev. Anything for you.”

Just like that, she was back to being smiley, pushing up against him with that irresistible grin on her face. “That’s what I like to hear. So, how shall we let people know about our totally-not-secret engagement? I was thinking about you maybe taking me to the jewelry store and letting me pick out a ring, so I can show the guys at work that I’m not available to them. Ooh, or maybe we can go look at some dress shops to see how much we’re going to be shelling out for this wedding I’m sure you’re expecting us to have.”

“Whoa, whoa, I don’t have the money for that sort of stuff right now. You’re going to have to let me talk to my folks before we get into that kind of business.” Her smile turned to a frown and he felt slightly guilty that he wasn’t going to be able to let her live out these fantasies. “Sorry ‘bout that. Kind of what happens when you live at home and don’t have a job.”

“If we’re getting married, you’re really going to have to fix that job problem,” she told him. “I can’t support both of us on tip money. And don’t start trying to tell me that playing the violin at church is enough of a job for you, because unless you start getting paid for that, it totally doesn’t count.”

He gave her another nod, a small grimace on his face. “Hearin’ ya loud and clear. When we finally get married, I promise ya I’ll work on gettin' a real job to help pay the bills and all that. But we aren’t getting married for a while, so there’s not a real rush on it.” She stomped her foot down hard on his, causing him to yelp in pain. “Ow, Sev! What the hell’s that for?”

“We’re getting married as soon as possible. If that means we march into your house right now and you introduce me to your parents as your girlfriend in the same breath that you mention you’re marrying me, so be it. I’m tired of living on my own and I need my big, strong Brady to come take care of me when I get lonely.” She bat her eyelashes a few times, hoping that he’d find it suggestive, but all it did was make him frown more. “Okay, you’re not taking me seriously and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to change that.”

“I’m takin’ ya plenty seriously! You’re just springin’ things on me that I’m not ready for, that’s all!” Inside, he was screaming about how dumb the situation at hand was, but on the outside Brady was trying to be as accepting as possible. “We’ll come up with somethin’ to get you what you want as quickly as we can, but I’m not thinkin’ it’s going to be anywhere close to as fast as you want it.”

“As long as we’re married, and as long as it’s sometime soon, I don’t care about anything else.” She got up onto her tiptoes and puckered her lips for him to kiss, but he took a moment to stare down at her and ask himself if she was really worth the struggle of introducing her to his parents before he decided that yes, she was, and he gave into her simple kiss request.

Giving into the request of getting married wasn’t something he would do as easily, but as the days went by and he realized that he didn’t want to talk to his parents about the girl he was (now) engaged to, the idea that she had initially proposed of everything being under the table began to sound better. Whenever he’d be around his parents, they were asking questions about what had happened with Owain (which was no longer a secret after about a week, and while they didn’t know Brady was the one responsible for it, they knew every other detail), and one of the points they made was to make him promise he wouldn’t do the same. Making that promise came naturally, but the idea of breaking it was present, to the point that after two months of doing nothing but dwelling on the idea that Severa had suggested that day, he decided that they were just going to have to go for it.

It didn’t take very long to get Owain in on their plan, and he was more than excited to help his cousin out. “After all, you did this for me, so it’s only fair if I do the same in return for you,” he said upon hearing the news. “It would be the greatest honor to be the officiant for your wedding to your dream girl.” With him being so open to the idea, it paved the way for all the details to be squared away, and everything to be set up for yet another secret wedding that would be even harder to keep hidden from family members.

Thankfully, all the paperwork was obtained and all the physical necessities were purchased and ready just in time for the wedding to happen while Brady’s parents were away for a romantic weekend to celebrate Chrom’s birthday. While having their anniversary be just days after his father’s birthday was a bit weird to Brady, he couldn’t have imagined it being any other way with everything needing to be under the radar. The ceremony, while attended by a few more people than Owain’s had been, was still incredibly small, although there were enough people there that when they went to lunch afterwards, they had to have two tables pushed together. Aside from him and Severa, and Owain and Noire, they each had a friend in attendance, plus Lucina had shown up to play the role of supportive sister, and she had sworn to keep things secret, saying that she hadn’t yet let it slip that she’d been living with her boyfriend for years rather than a female roommate, so she could be trusted.

Like they had on the evening of the day Owain got married, they all went to move furniture and belongings from one house to a new one after the celebrating was over, although this was a much easier endeavor as Severa already had her own place and didn’t need much added to it in way of heavy furniture. This meant that Brady was able to leave his room somewhat intact, and he hoped that his parents would see it, and the hasty note he left for them, and think that he really was just spending some time at his cousin’s place.

But after a week of hearing nothing from his parents, not even a call making sure he was okay, he grew a bit worried, and decided that he should maybe go and fess up to what had actually happened. “Come on, are you serious?” Severa asked, punching him in the arm as she did. “We worked so hard to keep this from them, yet you want to just march in there and tell them what we did?”

He nodded, rubbing at where she’d just hit him. “Yeah, yeah, the guilt’s eatin’ too much at me. Can’t keep lyin’ to Ma like this, I just can’t.” Bending down to get more on her eye level, he cracked a smile. “Let’s just go in there and do this the best way we can, and maybe we’ll both come out still breathin’.”

“I can’t promise that I’ll do this the best way I can, but I’ll make it a fun time for us both.” She smiled back at him, hints of mischief in her eyes, and he hoped that she was just being silly for the sake of making him smile more—rather than mentally preparing herself to make the biggest scene possible in the living room of the mayor’s house.

The front door was unlocked when they got to the house, something that Brady immediately noticed was odd for his family, but because it was after work for both of his parents, he chalked it up to them being tired from a long day helping keep the city running smoothly. He was definitely not expecting his parents to be standing there, as if they had been waiting for them to walk right on in, but when his mom shrieked and his dad’s jaw began to hang slightly, it hit him that it hadn’t been them they were expecting. “Brady, darling, you’ve come home!” Maribelle exclaimed, opening her arms wide for a hug that he wasn’t planning on giving her. When he didn’t rush towards her, she let her arms fall and her attention became focused on the woman beside him. “Who’s this? A friend?”

Her eyes narrowing, Severa scoffed, “What, do I _look_ like a friend of his to you?” She stepped forward, extending her arm so that it her left hand was right before Maribelle. “I’m his wife, thank you very much. Pleased to finally meet you, new mother of mine.”

Maribelle grabbed what was right in front of her face, looking closely at the small ring that Severa had on her finger. “W-wife? I won’t hear a word of this!” Pushing the hand aside, she looked back to Brady, who was hanging his head in shame. “Brady, you explain why you’ve brought this low-rate prostitute into my house, masquerading her as your wife, right now!”

“She’s not a prostitute, first of all,” he mumbled, “and secondly, she is…kinda my wife, actually.” He began to fidget, grabbing his own hand that he was wearing his own wedding band on. “Trust me, Ma, this isn’t how I wanted you to find out…”

Maribelle’s eye twitched as she looked back to Severa, who was grinning smugly. “Not a prostitute? She certainly looks like she could fit in with that sort of street filth.” After giving her son’s supposed bride an once-over, she gave a very forceful shake of her head. “No matter, I know this is all some dirty ruse or prank that you’re just trying to pull on me. I raised my children to be better than others, and neither of them, especially not Brady, would do this sort of thing.”

“Well he did marry me, so it looks like your definition of ‘better than others’ might be a bit skewed,” Severa snapped, putting her hands on her hips. “Might want to look into what you were doing so wrong that you drove your son to exploit your ‘no moving out until marriage’ rule you set for him.”

“As he’s not actually married, he didn’t exploit anything at all.” Now trying to ignore Severa entirely, Maribelle walked around where the orange-haired woman was standing just to get to be beside Brady, whom she grabbed onto with a firm hand. “We need to discuss this sort of behavior and where you’ve picked it up. A week with Owain is a week too long of absorbing his terrible habits!”

He shook his mom’s hand off with ease, causing her to gasp in shock at his rebellious behavior. “Aw, cut it out, Ma! I didn’t pick this ‘habit’ up from Owain, because I really did marry someone without tellin’ ya! I couldn’t bring myself to introduce you to her before we got hitched, okay?”

“You wouldn’t actually do that,” she replied, trying to grab him again but he pulled away before she got the chance. “I spent so much time priding myself on the fact that you were better than that, better than that cousin of yours, just for you to do the same.” Her voice went cold as she finished her sentence, and when she spoke again it was with a chilled voice he’d never heard her use before. “I am going to do my best to prove this union to be unlawful and get you back under this roof.”

“Well it’s a damn shame that we got all our paperwork taken care of,” Severa said, earning herself an icy glare from Maribelle. “We made sure to be as lawful as we possibly could while doing this. Just so that you couldn’t raise hell.”

“It certainly wasn’t a courthouse wedding, and if it had been at the church I would have been alerted to it happening, so you must be lying.” Maribelle held her glare as she figured where she’d seen this girl before, despite how Severa was now beginning to laugh. “No one in their right mind would officiate a wedding between the mayor’s son and a criminal’s daughter—“

“I’m not defined by who my dad is, thanks.” Spitting the words like she was disgusted by the comparison, Severa smirked. “And okay, I’ll give you part of that last point. No one in their right mind would officiate it, but you know who would? Owain.”

That was where Chrom spoke, raising an eyebrow at what he’d just heard. “Is that true, or even possible? Last I heard, Owain wanted nothing to do with the church.”

“It’s true, trust me.” Taking in a deep breath, Brady quickly admitted to the thing he’d been hiding for months. “He did for me what I did for him. Can’t have a wedding without some guy runnin’ the show, and he was my guy, like I was his.”

“I should have figured I was wrongfully putting faith into you for telling the truth back then.” Chrom took a deep breath, exhaling as he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. “What’s next, you’re going to tell me that your sister’s in on this too?”

Before Brady got the chance to break his dad’s heart further and tell him he was right, Maribelle interrupted by clearing her throat loudly. While the men were able to be civil with one another, it was clear that the ladies couldn’t quite reach that level of kindness. “I cannot let my precious little boy pretend to be married to such a low-class woman,” she said, daggers still being shot at Severa with her eyes. “I’ll be issuing you both a court summons in due time, to put an end to this charade.”

“Okay, listen here, ‘mom,’ I am very rightfully married to your son, and I’ll be flaunting the fact that he chose me over all the ladies you’d have wanted him to pick.” At that, Severa once again put her hand in Maribelle’s face, wiggling her ring finger a bit. “See this? He bought this for me, not because he wanted to stick it to you, but because he loves me more than he loved being stuck here under your care.”

That assertion gave Maribelle an idea, one that she decided to throw into action by grabbing Severa’s hand and tugging it to pull the younger woman closer to her. “I doubt that you can show him even half as much love as I have given him for his entire life,” the blonde whispered into Severa’s ear, “and I will not tolerate you disrespecting me and my parenting skills in my home.”

“Let go of Sev, Ma!” Brady’s voice raised without him wanting to, and while his mom did heed his command, she did it with a look of complete disgust on her face.

“What kind of foul name does this creature have?” she asked, eyeing the backing-away Severa with contempt. “Whatever it was you just said, it sounds like the perfect name for a street rat like her.”

“My name is Severa. Better get used to hearing it, since I’m your darling street rat daughter now.” The grin she put on only made the look Maribelle was giving her get dirtier. “Glad to know that the family accepts me so easily. I’m sure I’m going to just love the rest of forever.”

Noticing that his wife was beginning to get far too angry, Chrom stepped closer to Maribelle in an attempt to calm her down, but she raised a hand to stop his progress. “No, dear, I don’t think you getting involved in this is the right move. I’m the one who failed as a mother to our son, I will be the one handing out punishment.” He reluctantly let her have her way, if only because she wouldn’t allow it otherwise. “Now, for said punishment…I guess I must assume that my son no longer lives here.”  
“That would be correct. My little apartment is so much better than this place.” Severa took a look around at the decorated walls and color-coordinated furniture and shuddered. “Can’t imagine what sort of dumb rules you implement in here. No one under the age of forty allowed to sit on the couches, perhaps?”

Judging by how absolutely enraged that snide comment made Maribelle, it was clear that Severa had gone past the point of no return in the argument. A shaky finger was pointed in the direction of the staircase, followed by Maribelle saying, “Upstairs. Now. No child of mine marries a stupid and barely special whore like this girl without proving they love her.”

“Ma, I’ve been datin’ Sev for years! She’s not stupid and she’s definitely special to me, so what’s sendin’ us up to my old bedroom going to do for that?” Brady wrapped an arm around Severa, holding her tightly as they both watched Maribelle still standing there, her pointed finger wildly shaking from anger. “You want us to talk about our feelings or something?”

“If you two are as married as you like to pretend you are, you will go up there and consummate this marriage. If you’re lying, I expect nothing but an apology.” Maribelle spoke like what she was saying was perfectly reasonable, although it was anything but, and despite her son’s multiple pleas to get her to rethink what she was asking, she did not drop the subject until she was marching behind them up the stairs.

For the following six hours, she stood inches from the bolted shut bedroom door, waiting for them to come out and tell her it was a joke and that it had gone too far. After that, Chrom told her it had been long enough and she needed to drop the subject, and so she unlocked the door and opened it, ready to pretend to forgive what had happened—and she was greeted with two nude bodies lying curled together on the bed, a sheet covering their lower halves. Even still, she wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact that she walked in on them after they had (presumably) done what she’d demanded, or the fact that they really were married.


	2. Things As They Are

Things had to be accepted for what they were by everyone, and if that meant that parents who didn’t necessarily approve of a marriage were having to grit their teeth and support it, that was just how it was. Over the next nearly two weeks, Maribelle was constantly calling to check in on the couple, just to make sure that they still weren’t going to admit to carrying on a joke for far too long. It ended up looking like she had managed to get even clingier, though, and while Brady hadn’t been aware that such a thing was possible, he tried his best to not let it put a damper on the newly-married bliss he and Severa were still experiencing. Even with how long it had been since their wedding, it was still surreal to the both of them to be married and together out in the real world.

After that bit of time, once the shine on the situation faded fast, the reality that the cramped and cluttered apartment he was staying in was his home for as long as that was what they could afford sunk in. Rather than telling himself to get a job to help move them into a place with comfortable room for both of their belongings, he instead spent several days just reorganizing what space they did have, trying to make it feel more like home than it already started to. Severa was spending most of her time at work, getting the money they needed to keep living there. This pattern, of him sticking around home and her being out working went on for a while, until one morning, when she should have been up and getting ready for work, she remained in bed until far past when she should have left, and Brady woke up for his day to find his wife still beside him.

“You okay, Sev?” he asked, rolling onto his side to look at her while she gave a small groan, her face looking pale and sickly. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work right about now?”

She groaned again, closing her eyes tightly as she nodded. Before he could get upset that she was missing work, though, she had an answer for why. “I called one of my co-workers and she’s covering for me. Don’t get your panties in a knot and freak out about me missing out on money. I’ll go in to work tonight, promise.”

“I don’t know if I’m likin’ the sound of that.” Brady frowned at how terrible she looked, and how determined she was to still go to work. “We don’t need the money that bad right now, do we?”

“Welcome to the real world, B. We always need money now.” Finally opening her eyes and looking at him, she tried to smile but managed to only look more uncomfortable. “I’ll be fine later, pretty sure. Just must have slept badly or something. No big deal.” Her insistence that she was okay wasn’t reassuring to him, but he believed it, because that’s what he felt a good husband would do in that situation.

Many mornings that followed that one were spent the same way, with her looking like she was sick but playing it off like it would pass in time, which it always seemed to do. Some of those mornings, he would wake up to find her not in bed but rather huddled on the floor of their tiny bathroom, complaining about how much her stomach was bothering her, blaming the previous night’s dinner for her problem. Other mornings, she would seem fine, but be very much on edge when it came to him talking to her, and if he dared touch her while she was in one of her moods she would snap at him. It wasn’t normal Severa, but she didn’t seem to find it as being too abnormal so he tried to not let it bother him.

On one of her rare days off, he got called into a last-minute violin practice session at the church, and since she was feeling under the weather when it was time for him to head out, he made her promise that she’d focus on resting and getting better while he was gone. “Can’t say I’ll just lay around like a loser all day, but I’ll try and stop feeling so bad,” she told him, kissing him quickly before he left. The whole time he was gone, she was on his mind, with how ill she seemed to get at times, and he really hoped she had listened to him and was taking it easy. Because of how worried he was, he wasn’t properly focusing on his violin playing, causing the practice to be ended a bit earlier than anticipated, which meant that he could get home to be back with Severa even quicker.

Of all the things he expected to see when he unlocked and opened the door to his apartment, the back of Lucina’s boyfriend was not one of them. The slender guy, turning to see who was coming in behind him, gave a soft gasp when he saw that it was Brady. “You, er, seem to have returned home earlier than we were informed you would be,” he said, looking at the watch he was wearing on his wrist to verify his claim. “Severa told us you would be out for another hour or so.”

“Practice ended early. What’re ya doin’ here, Laurent? Don’t remember tellin’ ya that you could come on in.” It hit Brady that Laurent had mentioned Severa saying something, and he squinted at the other guy. “Don’t tell me you and her have a thing goin’ on. Listen, I get that my sister might be a handful, but don’t be taking my woman from me because Lucy isn’t good enough for you.”

“Brady, you dolt,” he heard Lucina say, and the attention of both guys turned to the blue-haired woman standing by the doorway to the bathroom. “He’s here with me, because Severa asked me to come over for…moral support.” The last two words were hushed, as if Lucina didn’t want to be saying them. “Don’t start accusing my boyfriend of stealing your wife.”

Intending to comment on the significant other-stealing part of what his sister had said, Brady couldn’t help but get hung up on her hushed words instead. “What kind of moral support does Sev need that I can’t give her? She didn’t get super sick while I was out, did she? Poor girl’s been so miserable lately and I just hate seein’ her like that.” While he was talking, he didn’t notice Severa poking her head out of the bathroom door, face turned so that she was only looking at Lucina, and by the time he was done speaking she had retreated once more and Lucina was disappearing as well. “What gives? Where’re ya goin’, Lucy?”

“I think I’ll leave Laurent to explain that one, honestly.” To her boyfriend, Lucina said, “Tell him exactly what we talked about you telling him. That includes reading every message, word for word. We’ll be out in five.”

Laurent nodded, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone, while Brady, still confused about what was going on, took a seat on the small couch in the room. “I will start this explanation by saying that this must be an exciting time in your life.” Having retrieved his phone, Laurent chose to move closer to Brady, but rather than sitting on the couch next to him, he sat on the floor instead. “Regardless of today’s outcome, this must be a lot to take in and process.”

Not sure what Laurent was going on about, Brady shrugged. “I’ve been around Sev while she’s sick before. Not really that big ‘a deal, honestly. Didn’t know she was so sick we needed to call in the nerd squad, but,” he shrugged again, “that’s not a big deal either.”

“She asked for Lucina to come help her come to a conclusion on what ails her, and I naturally followed along. You do not need to jab playful insults at me.” Laurent stiffened where he sat, looking at his phone screen from over his glasses. “Besides, as you have no honest idea what is causing your wife distress, perhaps it is best if you do not attack the man who does know?”

“I wasn’t attackin’ you, but hey, if you wanna play yourself the victim here, go right on ahead.” Brady could hear muffled talking in the bathroom, and he knew if he pushed his head against the wall he’d be able to hear it clearer, but he didn’t want to invade the privacy the ladies felt they had. “Just tell me what’s up with Sev so I can help make it better.”

“I shall start with reading the exact conversation that Severa and Lucina had earlier today, as directed to by Lucina. Perhaps that will be enough to clue you in.” He cleared his throat and pulled his phone in closer to his face, trying to make sense of the tiny text in the screenshot of messages he was looking at. “Message from Severa to Lucina, ‘Hey Lucy, you free today? I need a girl over here for moral support.’ Message back from Lucina to Severa, ‘Yeah, sure am free. What’s going on? Got problems with being married to my brother already?’”

Brady couldn’t help but chuckle at that one, because it didn’t surprise him in the slightest that Lucina went to that conclusion. From in the bathroom, he heard her call out that they’d be rejoining them in three minutes, so he went back to listening to Laurent read the messages word-for-word. “Message from Severa to Lucina, ‘No way, nothing like that. I’ve just got a bit of a problem.’ From Lucina to Severa, ‘Define problem. Does it need medical attention?’ Severa to Lucina, ‘Possibly. Just get over here. Brady’s going to be at violin practice so we can do this without him.’ Lucina to Severa, ‘Sounds good. Should I bring anything?’” Laurent pulled his phone in even closer, trying to read the last lines of text. “Severa to Lucina, ‘Well I don’t know, smarty, can you think of anything to bring?’ Lucina to Severa, ‘My boyfriend for guard duty, and maybe some,’ second message, ‘Oh my gods Severa do you need my moral support because you’re sick or because you’re pregnant?’”

The word hung heavy in the air, lingering for a while because of Laurent having to squint even more to read the response to that message. Not sure what he could even say, Brady just hoped that the next message was Severa playing off that accusation like it was a bad joke. “Last message, from Severa to Lucina, ‘Hopefully the first, maybe the second. Missed something important, but I hope it’s because of work stress, not a baby.’” Sighing in relief, Laurent put his phone down in his lap and looked at Brady, who was sitting and staring at him slightly slack-jawed. “I take it that she never once mentioned this to you?”

“No, she sure didn’t,” he admitted, still in shock at what he heard. “I don’t know how this could’ve happened. It’s got to be stress messin’ with her. She can’t be having a baby. We’ve only been married, what, a month? There’s no way.”

“Contrary to your statement there, it is completely possible that she is with child. After the message exchange between her and Lucina, I was informed of what was potentially transpiring and took to doing some research in my mother’s library.” Once again reaching into his pocket, Laurent pulled out a crumpled piece of paper that he carefully unfolded and handed to Brady. “These were my findings. I did not write down anything that would imply that you two took part in any sort of sexual activities prior to getting married, because your sister insisted you were above such behaviors.”

“We were, don’t worry. Didn’t so much as look at Sev with the intent of sleepin’ with her until we got married.” Brady looked at the paper he’d been handed, the notes on it written in such a messy manner that it was hard for him to make out anything. “What’s all this supposed to say, anyway? Looks like you were writin’ and not paying attention to what words you were tryin’ to say.”

Snatching the paper back, Laurent said, “All I did when compiling this document was write down possible dates of conception and explain how many weeks into pregnancy she might be if that were the date the potential child was created.” He motioned to the first line of writing. “This would be the case if you had conceived the child on your wedding night, and this,” he pointed down to the bottom line, “is the most reasonable last possible date for this to have happened.”

“It couldn’t have happened on our weddin’ night. She wasn’t up to doin’ much more than some cuddling that night. Didn’t happen the next couple ‘a nights either, since she was—“ He was cut off by the sound of someone clearing their throat, and he looked over to see that Lucina and Severa had joined them out in the room. “—oh gods, Sev, why didn’t ya tell me that this was maybe goin’ on?”

Severa gave a small shrug, her eyes cast downward as she couldn’t bring herself to look at Brady. “I didn’t want to worry you. Didn’t want to worry myself either but it got to be too much, and I had to turn to someone who’d keep a level head about her in this situation.” At that, Lucina laughed softly, putting a comforting hand on Severa’s shoulder. “Seriously, if it weren’t for Lucina I might have lost my mind.”

“You would have handled this fine on your own and you know it,” Lucina replied, using that hand to give Severa’s shoulder a few pats. “Now come on, I think it’s time for the moment of truth. Let’s take a look at that test, shall we?” With her free hand, she pointed at the wad of tissue that Severa was holding, and the orange-haired woman gave a slow nod, lifting it so that it wasn’t hanging by her side. She discarded the tissues one at a time, dropping them beside her, until all that was left in her hand was what looked like a white stick.

“I’m really hoping that I’m just stressed and that this isn’t going to be how I’m scared it is,” she admitted, before looking to what she was holding and frowning when she saw it. Her facial expression said it all: the result of the test was one she hadn’t wanted to see. Lucina leaned over to look at it herself, and when she saw it, she moved to wrap Severa in a hug. “H-hey, this isn’t time for celebrating! You can’t be seriously happy that I’ve got something cooking inside me!”

Starting to shake, Brady stood up and went straight to where Severa was standing, looking down at her with eyes that were beginning to fill with tears. “What did ya just say there? Somethin’…inside you?” He motioned towards her stomach. “That’s not that funny of a joke, Sev, because we can’t be havin’ a kid. We just can’t be.”

“Yeah, well, guess what? We are.” She turned what she was holding so that he could see it, the two parallel pink lines strikingly obvious, and he began to choke up, trying to find words that were coming out instead as tearful babbles. “Oh, cut the dramatics. We’re not ready for this kind of thing, yet it’s happening anyway. We’ve got to suck it up and deal with it.”

“B-b-but,” he stammered, using his arm to wipe away tears, “I’m not going to make a great dad to this baby! Sev, I can’t do this!” His crying must have gotten on Severa’s nerves, because she wrestled her way out of the hug she was held in and harshly slapped Brady across the face, leaving both her hand and his cheek stinging from the impact. “What the hell was that for? I was just cryin’, which is completely reasonable here!”

“You’re annoying me,” she replied, before turning to look at Lucina and how she was staring, shocked at the violence she had just witnessed. “Can I take back what I said before? I _am_ having problems with your brother now. He thinks he can cry and act miserable about this, when he’s not the one having the damn baby we didn’t ask for.”

Lucina gave a hesitant laugh, shaking her head. “You knew he was a crybaby when you signed up to marry him. So, uh, good luck dealing with him, I guess?” She took a step backwards. “Then again, I think handling Brady crying will be a lot easier than breaking this lovely news to everyone. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, handling everything about this will be much, much easier than telling certain people.”

“I can understand why you would say that,” Laurent interjected, “but in my basic research I did to compile the dates on which this could have been made possible, I found some information that would lead anyone to believe quite the opposite. I wholeheartedly believe that telling your parents of this development will be easier than—“

Whatever his thought was, he didn’t get to finish it due to Brady loudly dissolving into a fit of sobbing. “Ma is going to _kill_ me for this!” he choked out. “She already wants to kill Sev for bein’ herself, now she’s going to kill me for having a kid with her!”

“Hence why I said what I did.” Lucina smugly smiled at her boyfriend, who muttered something about how he’d been cut off. “I know my mother and my brother too well to know how all of this is going to turn out. I’m so sorry that you’re going to have to go through this, Severa,” she said, looking to the still-frowning woman. “At least on the bright side, you can say you’ve made this kid out of love, right?” Judging by the way Severa turned, glaring, with her hand raised as if she were going to smack her friend as well, that wasn’t a bright side to the situation at all.

* * *

“I still can’t believe this! My most dearest cousin, becoming a father in a matter of months! Had I known that my officiating abilities would lead to this so quickly, I certainly would have warned you, but…” Owain’s thought trailed off as he saw that Brady, resting his head in his hands with his elbows on the edge of the table. “What’s the matter? Is my excitement not catching on?”

“I think he’s just thinking, Owain,” Noire said, putting her hand out to touch one of Brady’s arms. “He’s had a busy past few weeks, and I’m sure telling us about what’s going on is taking a lot out of him mentally.” She gave a small smile and a soft sigh. “I can only imagine what it’s like to know you’re having a child, but then again, my role would be the one Severa’s currently in, not the one we’re witnessing.”

As if she were summoned at the mention of her name, Severa came walking over, her work uniform in disarray and a spilled glass on the tray she was holding. “Trust me, Noire, you don’t ever want to have a kid. Ever. Worst experience of my life so far, and I’m only, what, seven weeks into this?” She set the tray down on a nearby empty table and came back over to them, putting her arm on the top of Brady’s head. “Even still, I’m having a walk in the park compared to what this guy’s going through.”

“But aren’t you the one who has to experience the gross parts?” Noire asked, retracting her hand as to not give Severa the wrong idea of her intentions. “The sickness and tiredness and everything? How can he have it worse?”

Severa grinned. “Because he’s a fucking pansy, that’s how. Poor guy has it so rough, having to think about how to tell his mommy that she’s going to have a grandbaby to be answering to soon enough.” She laughed, shaking Brady a bit with the arm on his head. “No, but seriously, between him crying over feeling so bad that he did this to me, and him crying over not knowing how to pick up the phone and tell his mom that I’m pregnant, his life has become nothing but moping and constant pity parties.”

“He still hasn’t told Aunt Maribelle?” Owain raised an eyebrow, one that only went higher when Severa “mmhmm”-ed him. “Which means that Uncle Chrom doesn’t know. Which means that I better not tell either of my parents, lest they break that news to them for him. That would not be the ideal way of letting them know they are to be grandparents!”

“Lucina ain’t squealed yet, thank the gods, and now I’ve got to trust you not to either,” Brady finally said, looking straight at his cousin. “Don’t want them hearin’ this news from anyone but me or Sev.”

“You’re never going to tell them,” Severa said, still shaking him with her arm, “because you’re going to break down every time you try. I can imagine it now, we’ll be taking the damn baby home and your mom will call, and you _still_ won’t tell her then.”

“I’ll tell her when I come up with a good way to. Can’t do this wrong like when we told ‘er about us bein’ married.” He sniffled. “Besides, she’s got to be there for us before this kid’s born. I’m not goin’ through this without Ma there.”

Taking her arm off his head, Severa rolled her eyes and went back to pick up her tray. “Okay, you keep telling yourself that, B. I’m pretty sure what I said’s going to end up being true, and then there’s no one but you to blame.” She balanced the tray on her hand and started walking away from the table. “I’ll be back after I check on my section. Don’t leave or anything until then!”

“We weren’t planning on it,” Owain told her, and as soon as she was gone he leaned in closer to the others. “Okay, now that she’s gone, I have a suggestion. We need to celebrate this wonderful event in her life somehow. Who’s with me?” He was met with silence, although Noire’s face did light up at the mention of celebrating. “Come on, you two! Ideas!”

“Not up for celebratin’ this, really.” Still sniffling, Brady watched his cousin’s expression fall from excited to a more neutral one. “Seriously, bigger things to be worryin’ with than going out and havin’ fun because me and Sev made a choice we probably shouldn’t have.”

“I think the idea of celebrating somehow is lovely,” Noire softly said, leaning her head against Owain’s shoulder. “When I make your birthday cake, I think I might bake her something as well. I’m sure that will be celebration enough for everyone, right?” Owain eagerly nodded, mentioning something about how great the cakes Noire made were, and she blushed. “Oh, no need for that kind of flattery. I just really like baking…”

“Ooh, what are we baking for?” It was a new voice entering into the conversation, and all three participants looked to see a brown-haired, perky woman standing at the end of their table, wearing a much neater work uniform than the one Severa had on. “Sorry, was just walking by but I couldn’t help but overhear that Noire’s doing some baking. Owain never shuts up about how great what she makes is, so…what’s the occasion?”

“There isn’t an occasion, Cynthia,” Brady muttered, causing the new woman to tilt her head at him and give him a confused look. “They’re just tryin’ to make somethin’ better than it actually is. You know, the kind of stuff Owain’s great at doin’?”

“I don’t think I get it,” Cynthia replied, kneeling down where she was standing, putting her hands on the table. “What’s so bad in the first place? Severa hasn’t told me anything that’s going on, other than that she’s not been feeling so hot lately.” The innocence in her question was enough to get Owain to crack up in laughter, followed by Noire giggling a bit, all while Brady began looking even more distraught about things. “Oh! Oh gods! She’s dying, isn’t she? My best co-worker buddy, dying right before my eyes!” She jumped right back to her feet, slamming her hand on the table as she did. “I’ve got to go let her know I’m totally here for her in her time of need!”

No one stopped her as she ran from the table and back into the kitchen area at the restaurant, screaming for Severa as she went. “I, uh, don’t think we should have laughed there. Might have given Cynthia the wrong idea.” Owain, covering his mouth to mask any stray chuckles, looked at Noire who had gone from giggling to cackling like a mad woman. “And you as well, I guess. None of this mental instability stuff while we’re here, please. I can’t handle—“

“Who dares refer to this as ‘instability’?” Noire barked, her voice gone gravelly. “If you cannot handle me at all my times, why should a lame fool like you handle me any time at all? You shouldn’t, simple as that!”

“You two work out your problems, I’m going to just get on outta here. I’m not feelin’ like great company today and I’m just burdenin’ you both with my presence.” Brady slid off his seat and fished out a few dollars from his pocket, throwing it onto the table. “That should cover what I got. Nice to see ya today, Owain, and, uh, a happy early birthday, I guess.” He waved, knowing that his cousin was a bit occupied with trying to keep Noire from doing anything drastic while in her mood, and started to leave the restaurant.

He made it to the door when he felt someone wrap their arms around him, and the familiar smell of Severa’s long hair let him know it was her. “I thought I said not to leave until I was done checking my tables and making my money. What, did you think now was a perfect time to leave your pregnant wife and start fresh somewhere else? I don’t think so, mister.”

“Sev, I’m just headin’ home. Not leavin’ ya, just getting out of this place before I lose my mind over everything I’m stuck dwellin’ on.” He heard her sigh, followed by her arms unwrapping themselves, and he turned his head to look over his shoulder at the pout she was showing him. “Come on now, don’t do this to me. I don’t want to be here any longer.”

“And you think I do?” she asked, making her lip quiver. “I’m almost done working for the day, promise. Just stay here and we can go home together.” He wanted to resist and start walking home, but the way she looked so pitiful was too hard to ignore, so he let his shoulders sag and told her that he’d stay. “Oh, thanks so much, Brady! I’ll be done soon, and then that means it’s back home for us.” She leaned up and kissed him, before walking off back to wherever she’d been before, leaving him there to stand and wait for her return.

He wasn’t sure what her definition of _soon_ was, but it definitely hadn’t been used in any way that he would have used it. It wasn’t for close to an hour later that she came back, uniform shirt untucked and her hair hanging long and loose over her shoulders, and he stood up from the bench there in the foyer area, looking cross with her. “What took ya so long?” he asked, as she tried to hurry him out the door. “I wanted to leave forever ago!”

“Trust me, it’s better if I don’t tell you what took so long. You’ll never let anyone live it down,” she replied, grabbing his hand and dragging him outside, towards the beat-up car that they called their own. “Let’s just forget that I took forever and call it good.”

“You’re hidin’ something, aren’t you, Sev?” he asked her, following along at her brisk pace. “You’ve got to tell me what’s goin’ on eventually. Nothing good comes out of lyin’ to each other, ya know.”

Reaching the car, she let go of his hand and ran to the driver’s side, climbing in as fast as she could, while he got in much slower. “Nothing good ever comes out of lies, yeah, but as long as you’re still hiding everything from your parents, I’m not admitting this to you.” She pushed the key into the ignition and started the car, revving the engine a few times before driving away. All he could do was stare at her and wonder what it was she was going on about, but then his phone began to ring and she nearly slammed her foot on the brakes in fear. “Brady,” she cautioned, “do not, under any circumstances, answer that call.”

He was already pulling his phone out of his pocket, noticing that the call was coming straight from his mother. “Uh, why do ya say that? It’s Ma. I’ve got to answer it if I know what’s good for me.” She visibly tensed up, tapping the brake a few times to try and deter him, but he clicked to answer the call anyway and was greeted with his mother furiously shrieking at him about how she had to find out his big news through someone else, and that he was a terrible son for not telling her anything. By the time he hung up to silence her, he was crying and shaking and Severa was sitting in her seat, wishing he’d listened to her about answering that call.

“I might have accidentally let it slip to Cynthia that we’re having a baby,” she admitted, “and you know her. First thing she does with any exciting news is tell her mom, who then told her dad, who called your dad immediately.” She sighed, listening to Brady try to form words while crying too hard to manage it. “B, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to let it happen. Trust me, telling her was not something I intended on doing until everyone else knew.”

“Why’d ya have to tell her, then?” he choked out, tears streaming down his face. “She thought you were dyin’, couldn’t ya have just played along with that? Now Ma knows and she hates us more than usual because we didn’t tell her right away, and this is all because of Cynthia not knowin’ how to keep secrets from her parents!”

“Well it makes you feel any better, I’m not planning on telling her anything else. She can find out things the same way your mom did.” Sighing again, Severa gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter. “We’ve got to go face her in person before she tells _my_ mom. Last thing we need is both of our mothers gunning for us because we’ve hidden this from them.”

“Oh no, we’re not goin’ to go see Ma today. No way.” Despite his crying, Brady was able to make himself sound at least semi-forceful. “She’s going to kill me, then kill you, then kill me again, and then she’ll make us regret doin’ this. We just can’t go talk to her about this, not when she’s most angry about it.”

“If we wait, she’ll tell my mom, and we don’t need the police at our door to freak us out. Talking to your mom, no matter how terrible of a person she is to interact with, is going to work out for us in the end.” Severa plastered a fake smile on her face. “And once we’re done talking to her, we don’t have to talk to her about anything else for a long time. Hopefully.” He wanted to believe what she was saying, but he knew his mom better than she could ever claim to, and therefore he knew that she would not be content with not hearing anything about the situation.

They pulled up in front of the house at about the same time that his dad did, and so the front door was open and Maribelle was standing there waiting when she saw not just her husband come home, but her child and his newly-expectant wife showing up for a visit. Rather than greeting Chrom like she usually did, she made a determined march down to the sidewalk outside the house, hands on hips and a stern expression to prove she wasn’t pleased at all. “I hope you two are going to explain yourselves!” she yelled, before either of them had opened their doors. “I am far too young to be having a grandbaby!”

“I’m going to set her straight real quick,” Severa muttered, before opening her door and joining Maribelle out on the sidewalk. “Look, I get it, you want to think you’re some young woman who’s got her whole life ahead of her. Well guess what? Your youth left you decades ago, and so you’re very much old enough to be having a grandchild.”

Not used to being sassed back, Maribelle blinked a few times to make sure that what she had heard had really just happened. “Yes, well…” she started, before turning to look at Brady, who had just gotten out of the car. “Brady! Please tell your dear mommy that what everyone is saying is a dirty lie, and that it’s all for laughs!”

“Can’t do that, Ma,” he replied, walking around the car to come stand beside Severa. “What you heard’s truer than true and there’s nothin’ we can do about it.”

Maribelle blinked several more times, now in shock that her son didn’t do as she said. “But my dear, aren’t you too young to be having a child? The getting married thing, I’ve already forgiven that, but a baby is a huge responsibility—“

“Enough, Maribelle.” Interrupting his wife, Chrom came down to the sidewalk to join the conversation, after having dropped his work things off inside the house. “You were younger than he is now when you took on that responsibility for the first time. While I can’t say I’m proud of what’s happened, at least he’s got his priorities in order and married the woman before he had a child with her.”

“—okay, I can accept that he is older than I was, _but_ that doesn’t mean he’s fit to be a parent!” Coming back from that interruption, Maribelle shook her head at what she had heard Chrom say. “Especially not since I am almost certain these two are only married because this happened prior to their secret ceremony! What sort of couple, one-half of which is a devout member of the church, would do such a thing?”

“Er, we would?” Chrom put his hand on his forehead and sighed. “Maribelle, listen, you’re being irrational here. You are getting on them for possibly doing things that we did, and I think you need to step back and calm down.” She started to say something that began with the word “but”, and he shushed her. “No, no buts. We’re not thrilled that we’re going to be grandparents, sure, but we’re not going to harass either of them for this.”

“I want to see her punch me,” Severa off-handedly said, mostly in a whisper to Brady, but just loud enough that Maribelle heard it. It was a split-second movement, but the older woman curled one hand into a fist and made a lunging motion towards Severa, but she was stopped by Chrom grabbing her other arm, as well as Brady stepping between the two.

“I would most definitely love to punch you in your smug face,” Maribelle sneered, trying to shake her way out of her husband’s grip, “but I’m too much of a lady to partake in such crude activities. I can promise you that what I’ll do to you is much, much worse than anything I could inflict with a simple fist.”

“Yeah, I think we’re done here.” Brady pushed Severa back a bit towards the car. “Sorry ya had to find out about the whole havin’ a baby situation through someone else, but we’re not dealin’ with this here today.” He looked to his dad, who gave an approving nod, before looking once more at his still-angered mother. “Ma, once ya get back to your senses, we can talk, but for now it’s not happenin’.”

They got in the car incredibly quickly and drove off, leaving the two standing there, one still restraining the other. “He’s right, you know,” Chrom said, finally letting go of Maribelle’s arm. “You’ve lost your senses. I’m sure, once the shock wears off, we’ll both be happy about this, but for now it’s just a lot to take in. Our little boy, grown up so much that he’s starting a family of his own! Crazy to think about, huh?”

“I swear, the next thing we’re going to hear is that Lucina’s doing something illegal with that intellect of hers.” Sighing deeply to collect herself, Maribelle looked to Chrom with a small, genuine smile. “I’m sure you’re correct, though, and in due time we’ll be happy with this development. As long as this is the last development of this type that he drops on us in the near future, anyway.”

* * *

Once she accepted things for how they were, the problem with Maribelle even knowing about the baby situation was simple: she became overbearing once again, always checking in to see what was going on, to make sure that everything was perfectly fine. She insisted that she know everything and be told about every single piece of information relating to the child, beginning with being one of the first to see the initial sonogram image that clearly showed the little child in its tiny glory. (Of course, Severa wouldn’t show her that without a fight, one that included making it perfectly clear that the image proved that the kid’s existence wouldn’t have happened had it not been for Maribelle’s ultimatum that day at the house.) No one was sure if she was going this because she really cared, or because she wanted to get on her son’s nerves, but the second option seemed all the more likely when she’d place phone calls at odd hours or simply drop by the apartment at random.

After they had managed to get her out after she came to the door unannounced for the third time in a week, and for close to the fiftieth time since she’d found out, Severa seemed eager to get out of the house herself. It was one of her sparse days off, which she normally chose to spend at home, but this one she wanted to spend differently. “Come on, let’s just go somewhere,” she said, as she dressed herself in one of the nicest things she could manage. “Drive around until we find something to do. Better than sitting around here and waiting for your mom to try walking in again.”

“She wouldn’t try that one twice on the same day,” Brady replied, before sighing when he saw the dead serious look Severa was giving him. “Okay, okay, I’ll go ridin’ with ya. Don’t need to be givin’ me the death glare any longer.”

She laughed, pulling her shirt over her head as she did. “There, glare’s taken care of.” He muttered that he wasn’t quite meaning like that, so she finished putting her shirt on properly, taking special care not to let it get caught on her navel piercing, which seemed to be a bit more prominent than usual. “Gods, you can’t be serious!” Her voice got high pitched as she looked down at how her piece of jewelry was making the tiniest of impressions through her shirt. “I can’t be starting to get fat already. It’s been, like, three months!”

“Maybe if ya didn’t make it a point to eat everything Noire bakes for ya, this wouldn’t be a problem!” Even as he was looking at her standing there, staring at herself in contempt, he didn’t notice anything about her physically that was out of the ordinary, but if she could see it, he had to at least play along. That changed once they were out in the car, with her behind the wheel and him as the passenger, because he could look to her and see the very slight curve of her stomach, accented by the jewelry she was wearing—and it was at that moment that the reality of the situation really began to hit him. He could try and blame those friendly baked goods for this, but that excuse would only hold for so long.

“You can stop staring at me whenever you want,” Severa told him, not taking her eyes off the road before her. He mumbled an apology and turned away. “Seriously, I get it. You can’t look away from how hideously gross your wife already is. I deserve it, probably.”

He slammed his hand down on the dashboard. “Come on, Sev! You’re far from hideous or gross, and I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for ya to ever fit either of those descriptions. What, did Ma comin’ in this morning trigger some sort of ‘self-hate’ switch in your mind?”

“This has _nothing_ to do with your mother!” she snapped in response, leading him to ask what the real motive behind everything was, as she had framed this “aimless” drive by saying it was to get away in case Maribelle came back. “Ugh, I should have thought this through a bit better before opening my damn mouth.”

“Yeah, you should’ve. Now get to explainin’ what’s up before I jump to conclusions.” He pulled his hand back closer to his body, while looking around at the empty scenery they were driving past, leading him to think maybe they were going somewhere secret. “We aren’t goin’ somewhere to…” His voice choked up before he could finish the suggestion, yet Severa went wide eyed at the mere implication.

“I could never even think of that, you monster,” she spat at him, “and I can’t believe you just seriously tired asking me that! I thought you super church-y people were above killing babies.” He tried to spit out a sincere apology, but he had begun crying and was beyond being able to form words. “I get it, really, I do. You were demonstrating how you jump to conclusions. But no big deal. We’re just going out to the jail.”

Since he was crying and blubbering like a child, Brady couldn’t ask why that was their destination, but he had a fairly solid guess as to what it was. They were probably going to have a little visit with Severa’s father. But when they pulled up outside the foreboding building, he was told to just stay in the car, only to get out to move to the back seat. He ended up sitting out there, alone in the summer heat, for close to half an hour, during which he collected himself and got ready for whatever was going to happen, all while sitting with the door wide open to allow for fresh air. The furthest thing from his mind at that time was the possibility that they were there to _get_ her father, yet that was exactly what was happening; when Severa came out of the building, she had with her a man that Brady didn’t recognize, but could he easily guess it was her father due to them having an almost identical hair color.

This was only cemented further when she handed the guy the keys to the car and he got in to the driver’s seat, while Severa climbed in to be the front passenger. “Hey, who’s the big guy in the back?” the man asked, looking at Brady through the rearview mirror. “Looks like he’s the mayor’s kid, with all that blue hair he’s got. Severa, please tell me he’s not here on business of that law-crazed mother of yours.”

“He’s not here because of my mother _or_ his,” she replied, turning her head to look back at him. “He’s here because it’s about time you get to meet the love of my life.”

“Oh, so this is the boy you’ve talked about endlessly for years?” She nodded, and the man smiled, giving a small wave to the back seat. “Well, kid, it’s nice to meet you after all this time. The name’s Gaius. I’m Severa’s dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Brady, but, uh, I’m sure Sev’s mentioned that a time or two.” Scratching his head a bit for what else to say, Brady figured he could hit on one of the points Gaius had raised before. “And I am the mayor’s kid, yeah. Don’t worry, though, because I’m not anything like my dad. Or my mom. I’m just me.”

Severa gave a long, slightly dreamy-sounding sigh. “And you’re totally my husband, right?” Gaius choked on air when he heard the question, and looked like he was going to choke again when he saw the way Brady nodded in response to it. “See, Daddy, I can manage myself while you’re in jail. I went off and married myself into a good family. With good people in it.”

“That’s wonderful,” he managed to say, still looking at Brady through the mirror. “Nice to know that my little girl’s out there taking care of herself, even when her dad’s not around to steer her right.” He gave a forced laugh, before sighing. “Your mother doesn’t know about this, does she?”

“Oh, she knows nothing.” Severa’s eyes lit up, and she reached back to grab Brady’s hand, which he took a firm grip of, the rough feeling of her ring’s gem under his fingers. “Which I’d like to keep it that way. She’s still blissfully unaware that her daughter’s married, and so she totally doesn’t know what else is going on in my life.” Gaius narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure out what she was implying, but she went on ahead and spelled it out for him: “I want you to promise me you won’t tell her that me and Brady are having a baby.”

If hearing his daughter was married almost made him choke, that revelation was quite nearly enough to kill the man. “You’re _what_?” he asked, causing her to repeat it, complete with a protective hand flourish over her stomach. “Oh gods, you’re not kidding, are you? Severa, you’re not being very funny if you think this is a joke. Let your old man be out of jail for a few days before you drop this sort of thing on him.”

“Sorry,” she replied with a fake and overly sweet tone to her voice, pulling her hand back to her so she could place it on her cheek to make herself look slightly excited about what was to follow. “I just couldn’t wait any longer to get to tell you this great news! I thought it would be a good way to make you, hm, shape up and stay out of jail permanently?”

Gaius couldn’t take his eyes off how his daughter was smiling at him, how she seemed to be so pleased with herself about what she’d just told him. He slowly nodded, making sense of everything that was going on. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll try. For the kiddo.”

“And for me too, right?” She bat her eyelashes a few times. “Daddy, you’ve spent so much of my life in and out of jail that you should really try for me too.” He told her that he would, although it was clearly a half-hearted answer, but she accepted it, thanking him over and over again for being willing to give following the law a shot. “All I’m asking for is at least the next year,” she explained, while her dad started to drive the car back towards town. “I’d like you around more than that, of course, but I want my baby to get to know the cool parts of its family, like you.”

“I hear you on that one. Let’s just hope that your mother doesn’t decide she wants this to go any differently.” Gaius paused, before shaking his head. “Damn it, Severa, how are we going to keep me out of jail if your mother doesn’t know about the kid? You’ve got to tell her so she doesn’t get it in her head that I deserve to be arrested again.”

Listening to the two go back and forth, Severa trying to remain adamant that her mother didn’t deserve to know anything while Gaius tried to convince her otherwise, Brady began to think about how different his wife’s family life was than the life he knew. While his parents were happily married and never seemed to have problems, Severa’s parents appeared to have some strange issues between them, to the point that, as far as he could tell, her mother was responsible for the multiple times her father had been arrested and sent to jail. He knew that she was not on good terms with her mother, but discovering how close she tried to be with her father, it made him slightly curious as to what was so off-putting about her mother.

“Brady, answer me!” It was Severa, sounding impatient, as if he had ignored something she’d said (which, because of slipping into his thoughts, he clearly had). He had to ask her to repeat herself, which she did with a huffy breath. “I asked you if you could tell my dad about yourself a bit more, but clearly you don’t care enough to be paying attention to me or him, so what’s even the point?”

“I got to thinkin’ about how weird your family life is, so sorry that I wasn’t payin’ attention!” He didn’t mean to snap at her, but like he normally did when she got on his nerves and misinterpreted his intentions, he was stuck having to backpedal and apologize for his brash attitude. “Sorry, Sev, for bein’ rude there. Wanted me to talk about myself, yeah?” She nodded, giving a fake sniffle to make him feel bad. “Okay, but there’s not much I can say about myself that’s not obvious.”

“I need to know if I need to be happy my daughter’s married to you or not,” Gaius said, chuckling a bit. “You might be the mayor’s kid, and you claim to not be like your parents, but can’t be sure of that until you start talking.”

“Well, uh…” Brady began to fidget, trying to think of anything interesting about himself that he could say, but drew a complete blank. “I’ve got nothing. There’s not much to me, other than who my parents are and that I’m married to Sev, I guess. Can’t all be exciting winners in this world, ya know.”

Rather than seeming disappointed at what he heard, Gaius seemed to be perfectly fine with the non-answer he was given. “Hey, it takes some kind of modesty to be able to say you’re not interesting at all. But you’ve got to have something about you, if you were able to sweep my little girl off her feet.” Under his breath, he added, “Definitely not your looks, though.”

“I heard that, Daddy!” Severa shrieked, slapping her father on the arm. “I happen to think that Brady is one of the most attractive guys around, thank you very much. He’s tall, dark-haired, and super handsome…even with that scar on his face. Makes him look rugged.” At the mention of his scar, Brady covered the afflicted eye with his hand, trying to hide it, but he quickly realized that there was no point as everyone had already seen it.

“To each their own, I guess,” Gaius said in reply to his daughter’s proclamation of love for her husband’s appearance. “Then again, what can I judge? I’ve been with a woman who’s got nothing worth mentioning for a chest, and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. On her good days, anyway.” He gave a soft chuckle. “On her bad days, I’d love to trade her off to someone who won’t arrest me for breaking small laws.”

“How can you love someone who’s down for arrestin’ ya all the time?” Brady asked, trying to overcome how embarrassed he was about his face to become part of the conversation. “That just doesn’t make any sense to me, and I don’t think that’s how love’s supposed to work.”

Severa snorted in laughter, while Gaius tried to find the words needed to explain his situation. “Well, you see, my dearest wife felt like she wasn’t going to find a man out there in the world, especially not when the man she did want hooked up with some snobby law-loving woman that she became super jealous of. And so, when she finally found me out there in the world, she just sort of settled for what she could get.” He paused, looking back in the mirror for a second to catch Brady’s reflection, before shaking his head. “I just can’t believe that my little girl’s gotten with the son of the guy my wife wanted all along.”

“Isn’t that the best part though?” Snorting again, Severa tilted her head back to take a deep sigh. “I bet, if Mother ever finds out about this, she’ll be so angry that she’ll take it out on anyone around to hear it. Sorry in advance for that, by the way,” she told her dad, who accepted the preemptive apology, although it quickly came to be relevant to the situation. This was due to the fact that Gaius had driven them straight to his house, and standing on the front porch of the modest-sized home (it definitely made Brady feel like his parents’ house was a large mansion, in comparison) was a woman with long red hair that shined in the afternoon light.

At the sight of this woman, Severa let out a string of curses, begging her dad to drive somewhere else so she didn’t have to face her. “Hey, no one said you had to go up and talk to her,” he replied, bringing the car to a halt in the driveway. “Just get out and get to walking to your place without saying anything. I’ll do the honors of talking to her for you.”

“Make sure you don’t tell her _anything_ about me being married or me having a baby! I don’t need her tracking me down to get answers from me, seriously.” Severa held out a hand with a pinky outstretched and her dad latched his pinky around hers, promising her that he wouldn’t do anything she didn’t like. “Thank you so much! Now have fun with your freedom and your car and your crazy wife! I love you, Daddy!”

“Love you too, Severa,” he said, letting go of her hand. She and Brady both got out of the car then, heading down the driveway to start walking to their apartment—and until she was out of view, Severa had a hand raised high in the air with her middle finger pointed upward. Gaius saw this, chuckling when he did, but he pretended not to find it amusing when he approached the woman standing on the porch, her arms crossed and a foot tapping. “Hey there, beautiful. Long time no see. What’s it been, six, seven months?”

“Nice of you to ask our daughter to pick you up rather than me.” The woman cracked a small smile, but did not drop her disappointed pose. “I thought better of our relationship, Gaius. I really did.”

He shrugged. “We’ve got a great relationship, Cordelia. You know this. I just figured I should burden Severa with getting me this time, and boy was that a good decision. She’s got some secrets she’s hiding from you.” He watched as the smile faded from Cordelia’s face and she implored him to continue. “No way, pinky promised her I wouldn’t. My lips don’t open nearly as easily as her legs do.”

“Her legs…?” Cordelia inhaled deeply, puffing her chest up in anger. “How dare you talk about our little Severa like that! She would never!” He reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to puff up a bit more. “Gaius, you better get to explaining before we go chase her down so I can get answers for myself.” He smirked, miming zipping his lips, and she narrowed her gaze. “Last chance, before I find a way to send you back to jail now.”

Cordelia was calling her daughter in complete disbelief and looking for confirmation nearly hourly over the next few weeks; Severa ignored every call until she felt like answering one to tell her mother to leave her alone and stop being so bothersome. That only caused Cordelia to come make an unexpected visit to the apartment, and her appearance was appreciated just as much as any of Maribelle’s ever had been, or quite possibly even less so. Brady had always thought that no one could possibly have a more love-hate relationship with their mother than he did, but he was proven wrong by watching just how much hatred Severa held towards Cordelia, only for the two to end up hugging it out at the end of the home visit. Severa swore that her mother was still a terrible person, but at least she was understanding and accepting of her daughter’s life choices in the end. Even if, at that point, there wasn’t anything anyone could do but accept things for what they were.


	3. Baking Towards Begging

Despite all the interest in what was going on, and how many people they were close to wanting to be involved in everything in some capacity, the honest truth was that, at least at the current moment, Severa didn’t want anyone helping her out. She felt that, between her, Brady, and the few people she truly trusted, they could take care of things on their own, and no overprotective and nosy parents were needed. This was in spite of everything telling her that she could really use some parental assistance, even if it wasn’t in the way they wanted to help (which was through emotional support).

There was no denying that, regardless of what she liked to think, there was no way that she was going to be able to make things work on what money she was making at her job. To put things simply, she made enough money to live in her apartment and have meals every day; there was absolutely no expendable money to start preparing for a child. The people she did trust to help out, while they tried their best to throw money in their direction, just couldn’t spare to let go of more than the occasional pocket change, as they needed their own money to support themselves. And so, because Brady still clung to the excuse of having his violin practices and performances through the church as his reason for not being able to find work himself, Severa was stuck trying to work more than usual while hoping that increased hours would result in increased tip money, not just wasted effort.

It did work that way, but those tips weren’t going to be spent in the way that she hoped. Mostly thanks to the child growing within her (but partially thanks to an over-eager Noire who was almost always bringing cakes and other baked goods over in the name of “spoiling the baby”), she was quickly discovering that her clothes were becoming much too small. But rather than running out and spending what little extra money she had on something new to wear, she chose to try and make it work as long as she possibly could.

This worked for a while, but eventually a point came where there was no denying that she needed a new wardrobe—and even then, she tried to ignore it. The night she hit that point, she was at work, carrying around her heavy trays and going about her business, with the unfortunate side effect of her shirt coming untucked on occasion. The first time it happened that shift, she laughed it off; the second time, she didn’t find it as amusing; the third time, she groaned and actually set her tray down so that she could tuck it back in right away. “Come on, it should not be _this_ bad already,” she muttered to herself. “I’ve seen enough pregnant ladies waddling around in here to know that this doesn’t happen until much later. This is simply ridiculous!”

“What’s wrong?” Cynthia asked as she came around the corner from the kitchen, holding a tray of her own. She looked at her friend and how she was fighting with getting the hem of her shirt back under the top of her pants, and the answer came to her naturally. “Oh, you’re just getting big, that’s all. That’s what happens when you’re having a baby, and it’s totally okay, don’t worry!”

“It’s not okay when I’m already this big and I’ve got so much longer to go,” she snapped in return, “and I’m still not buying myself a new shirt to fix this. I don’t have the money for that.” Getting the shirt tucked back in to her liking, Severa got under her tray and picked it back up, just for her shirt to untuck itself again, exposing the lower part of her stomach once more. “Gods damn it! I can’t keep doing this!”

Cynthia laughed, continuing on her way to wherever her table was waiting for her, leaving Severa standing there, grumbling to herself as she got her tray completely situated and taken to where it belonged. She tried to hide the fact that her shirt wasn’t properly fitting from everyone, be it by holding it down or putting something in front of her, but it was very, painfully obvious that something was wrong. So for the entirety of the shift, she had to pretend that she was oblivious to what was happening, which was aggravating to herself while absolutely hilarious to Cynthia, who made sure to make that known every chance she got. But, even still, it was Severa who got the last laugh in the situation, because she got to be cut for the evening early due to her wardrobe malfunction, while Cynthia had to stay on the floor for just one last table. She accepted this with pride, completely ready to impress the pants off her last customers.

A few minutes after that table was sat, she came back into the kitchen and found Severa stacking dishes, doing her work to get ready to leave for the night. Dramatically sighing, Cynthia said, “I think this guy doesn’t talk or something. He’s just kind of…staring at me while I talk to him!” She put her hands on Severa’s shoulders, moving them down to the crook of her back when her friend bent over to grab more dishes. “This is going to be the worst table ever!”

“Oh boo hoo. Maybe he’s just looking for a friend and you’re his special victim.” Severa broke into an evil grin, while Cynthia’s eyes went wide with worry. “Don’t offer to give this guy a ride home, or even your number, in case he’s plotting to kill you later.”

“Things like that aren’t funny, Severa,” Cynthia retorted. “I don’t want to be scared of this guy, even if he is sorta-kinda weird! You already know I’m terrified of someone hurting me because I’m nice to them…”

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll keep in mind that you’re a pansy when I’m cracking a joke.” Severa laughed, but her grin faded fast when she stood back up, picking a stack of plates up with her, and she could feel her shirt come untucked again. “You’re kidding me, not _again_ ,” she grumbled, unable to do anything about her problem. “I’m not excited about this part of this ‘having a baby’ thing, not even a little bit.”

Now it was Cynthia’s turn to grin. “Well, aside from the baby itself, this is the biggest part of the ‘having a baby’ experience! Just go out and buy yourself a new shirt or two, so you don’t have to deal with this. But, since I’m such a super great friend, I think I’ll help you out here.” Severa turned around so that they were face-to-face for a moment, before Cynthia squatted down a bit, reaching under the stack of plates to grab and tug down on the edge of Severa’s shirt. Rather than getting a positive thanks in response, she got yelled at instead. “Oh my gods, did I hurt you?”

“Just didn’t pay attention to me having a piercing, that’s all.” Severa’s teeth were gritted and she looked like she was in pain as she spoke. “You totally almost ripped out my belly ring.”

“Well that wouldn’t be a problem if your belly wasn’t already so big!” Cynthia replied, giggling as she did. “I didn’t even know you had a piercing down there until you started showing, so obviously it’s going to almost get ripped out when I’m tugging on your old skinny girl clothes!” She was shot a glare, accompanied with Severa saying something about how she didn’t appreciate the way that had been worded. “Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by telling you exactly what you’ve been saying about yourself. Sorry, Severa.”

“You’re not funny, you know that?” Still gritting her teeth, Severa contemplated dropping the plates and causing a scene, but she decided against doing it because she was trying to be nice, regardless of what had just happened. “The only person allowed to talk bad about how I look is me, and that’s only because it’s me talking bad about me.”

Cynthia gave a solemn nod, before freezing and running across the kitchen. “My table! I totally forgot about him!” she yelled in explanation. “I’ll be back once I’m done taking care of him, I promise!” Severa wouldn’t have cared if she had broken that promise or not, because all she wanted to do at that moment was go home and forget about this night, until she remembered that she still needed to go out and buy something new to wear the next time she worked. That left her grumbling even more as she finished up all her work to get out of the place, hiding from Cynthia whenever she came back into the kitchen to get things.

In fact, Severa was so ready to just get out of there that she almost walked out of the restaurant without saying goodbye to her friend, but even with how unhappy she was with her, she knew she couldn’t do that. However, the one time she actually wanted to see Cynthia, she couldn’t find her anywhere, and so she just did a once-around inside before leaving, walking straight past that “last” table that her friend had been given as she did. She made it a couple steps beyond the table before stopping dead in her tracks, turning her head to look back at the guy sitting alone. He was staring off into the distance, a content smile on his lips, but when he realized that someone was looking at him, he tensed up, changing his gaze downward and running a hand through his reddish hair.

She had half a mind to say something to him, even to ask him where his server was, when she heard Cynthia laughing at something back in the kitchen, and despite wanting to tell her bye, she made a mad dash for the door instead. Making a quick mental note to ask about that guy some other time (she _knew_ him from somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where), Severa gave a good, hard tug down on her shirt to make sure she was properly covered before she started walking home, making it halfway there before remembering again that she needed to go get a new shirt. “Psh, as if I really need it,” she told herself, not stopping her forward movement. “Today’s just a bad day. Next time I work, things will be so much better and I’ll be just fine to wear this again.”

The next time she worked was two days later, and the time in between the end of that shift and the start of the next one was spent at home, doing nothing more than relaxing, looking over some baby information books that Lucina had brought by, and snacking on some of the delicious baked goods that Noire had made sure to drop off. The first two things were seen as perfectly okay, but the third one was what she was chided about. “Sev, you’ve really got to stop eatin’ everything that girl brings over here,” Brady told her, trying to throw the entire tray of little snack cakes away in front of her eyes. “She’s makin’ this stuff because she thinks ya need it, but ya don’t.”

“Says you,” she said in response, grabbing his wrist to stop him from making a mistake. “I don’t actually need them, sure, but they’re so good. Your cousin married a baking genius or something. She needs to be paid for these things.”

“Hey, good idea! Maybe if ya tell her that, she’ll stop bringin’ them by unless ya pay her for them!” He tried shaking her off, to no avail, and so the cakes were saved. “Seriously though, Sev. It’s probably not all that great for ya to eat every single thing Noire brings by.”

She shrugged, letting go of him once he’d placed the tray back on the cluttered counter of their kitchen, but making sure to take another cake for herself. “So maybe I inherited my dad’s extreme sweet tooth. Big deal. It’s not going to hurt anything.” To prove her point, she bit into the cake, eyes nearly rolling back at how delicious it was. “Seriously, you should try this stuff sometime. It’s that great.” She offered the cake to him, and he pushed it away, leaving her to shrug again and take another bite. That was how the days went, with him cautioning her about eating and her ignoring him, making sure to accept the multiple deliveries of little snack gifts that Noire brought by with wide arms.

To no one’s actual surprise, when it came time for Severa to get ready for work again, she was even further from being able to keep her shirt tucked in than she had been the last time she worked. As long as she kept completely still, the very edge of it would remain under the top of her pants, but the second she so much as took a breath, it would come undone. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, looking down at the damage. “I don’t like this, not even a little bit. I am far too not-pregnant to be looking like this!”

Brady kept his mouth shut on the matter, but the moment Severa was gone, headed first to finally buy herself something that fit and then off to work, he made a mad dash to get ahold of his cousin. Owain, like any functioning member of society, was out at his job, but that didn’t stop him from being willing to field a phone call from one of his favorite people in the world. “Okay, listen to me here,” Brady told him, once they were actually able to talk without anyone being around on Owain’s end. “You’ve got to tell Noire to stop bakin’ things and bringin’ them over here. It’s friendly, yeah, but it’s got to stop.”

“Telling Noire to stop baking for you guys isn’t going to work. Trust me, I’ve been giving her many stern warnings about how she is tapping too heavily into our emergency money buying all the necessary ingredients, but you know how women can get.” Owain sighed on his end of the line. “You also know that Noire’s not exactly…mentally perfect, so you should know that she’s doing this not just as a friendly gesture towards you, but as a sanity-keeper for herself.”

“I get it, don’t worry.” Standing there in the kitchen, Brady looked at the multiple containers of baked goods that Noire had brought over, all of which were at least half-eaten. “Problem is, Sev’s takin’ it upon herself to make sure each and every one of those things she brings by gets eaten, and that’s not okay. She’s going to bake you guys out of your home, but before she does that, she’s going to bake Sev straight out of her clothes!”

“Er, why does this sound like you’re attempting to blame something on my wife that isn’t her fault at all?” Coughing to cover up something he added to his statement, Owain took a second to continue actually speaking. “I understand that you may not want to face the fact that the child-bearing process has some interesting changes on a woman’s body, but can you try not to pin blame on Noire for any of this?”

“I’m not pinnin’ blame on her for everything. Just what she’s responsible for.” Brady knocked one of the containers into the trash, feeling a small amount of satisfaction in doing so. “Besides, you tellin’ her to stop bringin’ sweets around would work a lot better than me tellin’ her to stop once she’s over here. Pretty sure she won’t go into her crazy mode on ya, while she definitely will with me.”

Owain started to say something, but he silenced himself when his father could be heard in the background, asking him to run some errand for their business. Once the details of what needed to be done were shared, and the sound of the other man was gone, that was when Owain chose to speak again. “We will have to finish this discussion at a later date. I refuse to tell Noire to stop showering your wife with kindness, even if she is a drain on our finances by doing so, and that’s how it’s going to be.” Before Brady could get another word in, the call was ended, and he was left hoping that his cousin would reconsider his stance without too much more arguing about it.

Based on the fact that Noire ended up at the door at some point during the day, bringing with her yet another container of cookies that she insisted were baked with good intentions, he was pretty sure there would be no stopping this outpouring of kindness. He could, however, make sure to hide away all of the sweets when they were brought over, rather than letting them sit in the open for whenever Severa came home and would immediately begin wanting to eat them. It wasn’t the best plan, because filling the trash with too many baked goods and leaving the containers behind as evidence wouldn’t work, and he didn’t want to keep this food around until it became stale and inedible, but there was little for him to work with and he needed to do something.

As expected, when Severa returned home that evening from work, she went straight to the kitchen to look for whatever goodies Noire had brought by for her, only to find nothing. “Hey, where’s the snacks?” she asked, looking into the small living room where Brady was sitting, watching her intently. “I know for a fact that Noire was bringing some over here. What did you do with them? You didn’t eat them all, did you B?”

“I’m not the one who’s got a problem with eatin’ all of Noire’s snacks,” he calmly responded, watching anger build in Severa’s face. “I had to do somethin’ for your own good. You can’t let what she bakes control your life like this.”

“It doesn’t control my life! Just tell me where you hid the damn stuff and I’ll leave you alone about it. In fact, let me know where they are, and I’ll…” She put a finger to her chin as she thought about what she would do, before giving up and sighing. “I don’t know what I’ll do, honestly. I just need what she brought for me. Well, actually, I don’t need it, but I sure do want it.”

He stood firm on his opinion in regards to the matter at hand, telling her that she couldn’t have it, and when she snapped at him that he had to give her what she wanted, he felt bad that he kept having to deny her what she wanted. But he couldn’t cave in and be weak just because Severa was getting angry. “Sev, I can’t let you keep eatin’ things ya don’t need, especially not the things Noire’s baking. What did ya have to go do today?”

“Work, duh,” she replied, before looking down at the shirt she was wearing, one that was clearly new and not as well-worn as her old one. “And go shopping, because I guess I started outgrowing my old clothes. But that’s not because of what she’s bringing me, I promise! It’s just because I’m having your stupid baby!”

“Whoa, callin’ our kid stupid isn’t the way to handle me not wantin’ you to eat yourself out of everything you own way faster than you’re supposed to grow out of it.” He stood up, walking over to her with arms open for a hug. She hesitated, glaring at him for a few seconds, before taking up his offer and moving right into his arms. “I’m doin’ this for your own good, Sev, and I mean it. Noire’s tryin’ to be kind but she’s just going to make everything a whole lot worse than it needs to be.”

She nodded, pressing her face up against his upper chest. “I know, but she’s so good at baking that it’s hard to remember that I can’t be letting myself eat everything she brings us! Especially not when I look at the stuff and I just…feel like I need to have it. I swear, this kid is bringing out the absolute worst of me and my sweet tooth.”

“Well, I’m going to try to not let that happen. Sure, Owain won’t tell Noire to stop bakin’ because it helps her be less crazy or whatever—which is a total lie—but we can keep you from eatin’ whatever makes its way over here. I’m not lettin’ my beautiful wife ruin herself because she can’t handle seein’ sweets without eatin’ them.” Brady, hugging her tightly, heard her whisper something but wasn’t able to make out what the words were. “Er, you mind repeatin’ that for me? Not sure what you said.”

“I said, man, I sure am lucky to have a husband who loves me so much that he’s willing to risk being absolutely murdered to keep me away from what I want.” His eyes widened, especially when Severa went to prove her point by kneeing him in the inside of his thigh and he felt like doubling over from the force she put in her attack. “Now what are you really going to do when Noire brings me food? You’re going to let me have it, yes?” He meekly nodded, not wanting her to hurt him further, and she gave a satisfied smile. “That’s all I could ask from you right now. Aside from the food, of course, which you better bring out of hiding here really soon before I knee you somewhere even worse than where I just did.”

Thankfully he hadn’t decided to throw the newest batch of cookies away, and so retrieving them from where they were hidden was an easy task. He didn’t like watching Severa eat the sweets, but he knew that he had absolutely no way to steer her to do something otherwise, even though he would have figured that her shopping endeavor that day would have been enough to do that for him. It wasn’t, obviously, and that meant that as long as Noire was bringing things by, he was going to have to deal with this problem. Either that, or when this ill-advised snacking brought Severa to needing even more new clothing, which was the more likely turn of events. When it did happen, it could have been argued that it wasn’t necessarily the food but rather the steadily-growing child within her that caused her be unable to comfortably fit into nearly everything she owned, but then it wasn’t used as a reason to stop eating what Noire provided—it was instead used as an excuse to have to go out shopping once more.

And for the couple, who still had just enough money to survive day-to-day, this was not a good thing at all. They couldn’t just go out and shop, after all; they needed someone who was willing to act on their interest in the situation and help them out. Brady insisted they not beg to his parents for help, and Severa didn’t want to go to hers, but someone was going to have to do what they didn’t want to.

* * *

Standing on the front step at the small house belonging to her parents, Severa shot a hateful glare at Brady as he psyched himself up for what they were about to do. “I can’t believe we decided we’d just come here,” she said, turning to look at the door with disdain. “My parents aren’t going to help us out at all. They’re going to take one look at what their daughter’s become, they’re going to laugh, and we’re going to be stuck going and visiting your parents instead. Simple as that.”

“Don’t be so negative, Sev. I don’t know about your mom, but I know that your dad will be easy to talk into helpin’ us out. Easier than either of my folks, anyway.” He took a few deep breaths, before lifting his hand to knock on the door. Before he made the first knock, he froze, asking himself if he really wanted to go through with what he was about to do, before Severa elbowed him in the back, startling him enough to cause him to knock much louder than he had intended. When he looked at her, wondering what that had been for, she shrugged, before motioning for him to look back to the door, which was opening, the noticeable orange hair belonging to Gaius the first thing either of them saw.

“Hey there, Brady,” he said, giving a small wave at the first person _he_ saw. “What brings you over here today? Need to talk to someone about—oh holy shit.” Speaking as he looked to see who else was there, he couldn’t help but be startled at the appearance of his most precious daughter, standing there on the porch step wearing clothes that not only obviously didn’t belong to her, but that she wasn’t properly fitting into. “Care to explain why you look like you’re hiding something under that shirt of yours, Severa?”

She frowned at her dad’s negative reaction to her appearance, although she had completely expected it to be that way. “I’m not hiding anything, except my dumb baby belly,” she told him, holding her arms over her stomach to try and cover it a bit. “Stupid kid in there, growing faster than I can make money to buy things for it. It’s so hard, being poor and pregnant at the same time.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me.” Gaius started closing the door, at which she screeched for him not to do that, and he stopped, reopening it to look at her with raised eyebrows. “Seriously, Severa? You’re here for pity and I’m afraid I’m not going to give you any of that. Sometimes a person’s just got to get themselves out of their problems, without any help.”

“What was that loud sound?” The voice, belonging to Cordelia, made Severa visibly tense up, but when her mother appeared at the door and had a concerned expression on her face, the younger woman realized that maybe she could work this to be in her favor. “Oh, it’s just my delinquent daughter, coming over unexpectedly. Why is this not a surprise to me?”

“Because she’s here to get something from us,” Gaius answered, trying to close the door again, but Cordelia grabbed it to stop him. “Hey, what’s that about? You actually considering helping her out?”

Cordelia nodded, obvious concern in her eyes. “She may be treading a path I don’t approve of, but she’s still my child at the end of the day. This is the first time she’s dared try to come inside since she first moved out, and she looks like she could use some support right now.” Completely disregarding the fact that Brady was standing right there, Cordelia reached out to Severa, who looked somewhat uncomfortable that her mother was trying to make contact with her in such a manner. “Oh, why are you being so hesitant? You liked it when we hugged the last time we saw each other.”

“Yeah, but last time we were both crying and I wasn’t so, well, ugly.” Severa looked down at herself, at how the shirt she was wearing (which was one she’d pulled from Brady’s drawer of clothes) was clinging to her with very little extra room. “I didn’t think my uptight mother would approve of even touching me in this state. I figured she’d take one look at me and send me away because I’m a disgrace.”

“I would never do such a thing.” Cordelia persisted with her reaching, until Severa took her hand, and then she pulled her daughter in close to her. “My dearest child, you should come inside and we should discuss what’s going on. Why, it looks like you’re barely getting through this wonderful time of your life.”

“Might be because I am barely getting through.” The response caused Cordelia to gasp, while Gaius rolled his eyes in somewhat disbelief at what he heard, and Brady looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he currently was. Severa, however, was going to try taking advantage of this kindness her mother was showing her, and if that involved putting on a frown and starting to tear up, that was just what she was going to have to do. “It’s so hard, not making enough money to buy anything for myself or for my baby, because I have to keep paying for stupid adult things like food and a place to live.”

Cordelia clearly did not like what she was hearing, a fact made clear by her insistence that the visitors actually come inside so she could take care of them, if even for a little while. When Severa said that she didn’t want to be a burden on someone she didn’t get along with, the red-haired woman shook her head. “No child of mine could ever be a burden, even if she and I don’t always see eye-to-eye. I know what it is like to be on the verge of motherhood while in a bad financial situation, but you have parents who are willing to help you out.”

“No one said I was willing to help,” Gaius interjected, “because it’s clearer than clear that Severa’s trying to weasel us out of some money here. She might be my girl, but she definitely didn’t inherit any of my smooth-talking skills.”

“She would never do such a thing, and it pains me to hear you suggest that she would take part in such cruel behavior.” That was when going inside was no longer an option, but rather an imperative action that had to take place. Stepping inside the house, the first thing Severa noticed was the amount of family pictures, all of which had her cut out of them, that were hanging on the wall; the first thing Brady noticed was how small the place felt, as if it were just a larger version of their apartment. “Come along now, let me make you both something to eat while we discuss what money you have to spend.” Cordelia’s voice was stern yet motherly, like she was acting on intuitions she normally ignored.

Gaius, on the other hand, was still not so keen on what was happening, something he made clear by the way he watched every movement of the two that he possibly could. “You better not be playing with your mother’s heart here,” he warned, looking straight at Severa as he spoke. “She already goes through enough when she thinks about how you don’t love her, so please don’t trick her into thinking you care when you really don’t.”

“Oh, whatever. She knows how I feel about her, sure, but maybe the fact that I’m going to be a mom myself has changed my view of her.” It was a total lie, and Severa knew that if that were found out, her father would kill her, but she didn’t really have much of a choice on the matter. “You know, just thinking about being a parent makes me feel like I’m going to do so much better for my baby than you ever did for me. And I’m not even talking about how you spent most of my life in jail. I’m meaning more about the actually trusting my kid when they come to me for help part.”

He raised a finger as he thought about what to say to that, but when the finger dropped without a rebuttal, she knew she’d won. “Looks like I’ll work on being a better dad to you, and a great granddad to that baby. Good to know you’re aiming to be a better person in life than I ever was.” He smiled at Severa, before turning to Brady and shrugging. “As for you, well, I don’t even know. Good to know you still love my daughter, I guess?”

“I’m not sure why I wouldn’t still love her, but okay.” The unimpressed look Brady gave Gaius as he spoke was enough to get the older man to take a step away, grumbling something under his breath. The second Brady knew he could say something to Severa without either of her parents hearing it, he sighed and said, “Your parents are weird, Sev. Both of us were completely wrong about what was going to happen when we came in here, and now we’re stuck havin’ lunch with them while we try and kiss up to gettin' some money from them.”

“If it gets us what we need,” she replied, keeping her voice low as to not be overheard by someone listening closely to her, “then I’ll do whatever it takes. I can’t keep borrowing your clothes, clearly.” She tugged at the tight fabric of her shirt. “And I can’t seem to make enough money at work to go out and actually buy myself what I need. There’s no other choice but to play with my parents’ emotions and get them to help us.”

“Except your dad already knows that’s what we’re here doin’, and I doubt he’s going to let your mom fall for it much longer.” He could overhear chatter happening in the kitchen, and something told him that Gaius and Cordelia were discussing what to do about their visitors, which only made him worry more about the situation. “Sev, we’ve got to come clean to them and apologize for wastin’ their time. Here I thought your dad would be the easy one to trick, and yet he’s the one ruinin’ everything for us!”

“He’s not ruining a thing, especially not since my mom actually feels sorry for me! She may hate me most of the time, but when she doesn’t, there’s no stopping her from showering me with love.” Beaming, Severa put her hands to Brady’s cheeks and squished them a bit, taking them away when he began to look annoyed. “Now let’s stop being negative and mopey and get exactly what we need!”

Before he had the chance to argue against her, they both heard Cordelia calling for them, asking what was taking so long, and they quickly made their way into the bright and sunny kitchen. She was pulling plates down from a cabinet, while Gaius sat on the counter, glaring at the two as they entered. “Our guests have finally made it,” he said, hopping down from where he sat. “Get distracted by the decorations out there? I call it the ‘vengeful mother’ décor. At least it’s that and not ‘married to a criminal’ chic.” He was very noticeably forcing himself to sound friendly, which had the effect of making it seem like he was angry about what was going on. “Now sit down so we can all talk. That’s the plan, right? Talking, listening to you two beg for stuff, and then giving in because we’re bad if we don’t?”

“We’re not here to beg for anything, Daddy. We’re here because we’re so not ready or prepared for anything that’s going on, and we really need help.” Pulling a chair out from the table, Severa sat down, crossing her arms before her. “It’s so hard, making next to no money while needing to buy so many things.”

“Huh, that sounds like a situation I’d know pretty well.” Gaius chuckled to himself. “Granted, my solution to that problem landed me in jail for over a year, and it really didn’t work out in the end, but I can say I’ve been there before.” Still chuckling, he looked to Cordelia to see if she found any amusement in what he just said, only to find her shaking her head at him. “What, don’t like it when I make light of my past crimes?”

“I don’t like it when you jokingly suggest to our daughter that she or her husband go out and steal what they need, that’s all.” She turned back to what she was doing, setting up plates of little finger foods, but Cordelia continued to speak. “The absolute last thing I want is for one or both of these two to be behind bars when their child is born, and I cannot believe that you would honestly joke about the circumstances that led to you being imprisoned and therefore not around for Severa’s birth.”

“So maybe trying to steal things wasn’t the smartest idea, but we were desperate and no one wanted to throw us a bone. I had to try and do something to make sure our little girl was going to live a somewhat good life.” Walking to stand behind Severa, Gaius wrapped his arm around her so that the crook of his elbow was at the front of her neck, and with his other hand he started tousling her hair, causing her to shriek and try to shake him off. “She’s got a decent life, I’d say, except for the part where she’s sitting here in our kitchen because she’s just as bad at decisions as we are.”

“I’m not here because of bad decisions,” she corrected. “I’m here because I know when to admit that I can’t do something, and I clearly can’t make enough money to take care of a family! I just need a little help, that’s all.” With one hand, she demonstrated how little of help she was asking for, by placing two fingers slightly apart. “Maybe a few dollars, maybe a quality parent-child shopping trip, I don’t know. Just something.”

Cordelia softly laughed. “That sounds like a lot more than a little help, especially coming from you. Why should I, a loving and caring mother, be willing to assist you, a rebellious and hateful child, with something like that?” The words she spoke were in stark contrast from how friendly she had sounded before. “Unless this is your way of burying all negative feelings between us and letting the past be the past. In that case, I would be honored to assist you in whatever ways you need.”

“I don’t think she’s here for patching up old disagreements,” Gaius said, looking down at how wide-eyed Severa had gone at her mother’s words. “Been telling you she’s here to take advantage of us, and you didn’t believe me.”

“We aren’t here for takin’ advantage of anyone.” His voice shaking, Brady knew he had to step in and say something before the whole situation got ugly. “We’re here because we really need the help. Sev works as much as she can, but it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. We really don’t need much, just enough to help out a little bit.”

Letting go of his loose grip on his daughter, Gaius turned to Brady and smirked. “Says the one whose family has all the money in the world. What, you scared to go face your parents and ask them for something? You just had to come here and make Severa play the pity card at us, didn’t you?”

“Hey, don’t snap at my husband like that!” Knowing that if she didn’t do something, Gaius would keep attacking Brady until he cried, Severa reached behind her to grab her father’s arm and gave it a hard tug to get him looking back at her. “We didn’t go to his parents because they’re not nearly as cool with our situation as you two are. Daddy, don’t you remember how you reacted when I first told you about the baby? You were so okay with things. Why can’t you be like that now?” She then moved her hand from holding onto him to pointing at her mother, who was now looking at her, most likely expecting a confrontation. “And you, Mother dearest, once you got over the way you found out, you were so thrilled that you would be having a grandchild. Don’t you want to help me get ready for it?”

The silence that fell across everyone was only broken by the occasional sniffle coming from Brady, who had started to feel somewhat regretful about coming into this house and stringing together lies to try and evoke pity. Looking between each other, Cordelia and Gaius mouthed things to one another, trying to come up with a decision on what to do without the others knowing; Severa, watching her mother’s lips intently, was able to catch just enough of what was being worded to know that they were at least considering her pleas for help. “Okay, we’ve decided that we will assist you a little bit, but only a small amount,” Cordelia finally said aloud. “As in, maybe enough money for a new outfit or two. We cannot spare any more than that, not with legal bills rolling in.”

“My fault on that one. Can’t help it that I love being in jail and anywhere but here.” Said with a completely straight face, Gaius fully expected the glare he received from Cordelia for his statement. “Not like it’s a lie. Dudes out in the prison have everything about me memorized, including the fact that I had the honor of, out in one of the solitary confinement cells, getting lucky enough to—“

Cordelia took in a sharp breath, stopping him in the middle of what he was saying, and her glare narrowed. “That is not the sort of information I want you divulging in front of our daughter and her spouse,” she said, before changing her expression back to a more neutral one. “Now, since we’ve gotten things settled and we have a course of action made, I think it’s time for us to eat and have a friendly, non-attacking discussion.” She grabbed two of the plates that she had set up and moved them to the table, then did the same for the other two, inviting everyone to take a seat and start eating.

For a while, everything went just fine, with everyone being civil and kind to one another, something that had seemed impossible upon entering the house. But once the food was gone and it was back to full conversation with little way of dodging unwanted questions, the scene turned ugly once more. It might have started when Cordelia asked Brady to talk a bit about his parents, or it might have begun when Gaius heard Chrom’s name get mentioned the first time and was filled with jealousy at how invested Cordelia seemed in hearing about their mayor’s private life. At any rate, it ended in a lengthy debate about what kind of person Chrom really was, and if he was worthy of being fantasized about by a somewhat-happily married woman. The debate made Brady feel awkward about being there at the house, because this was his dad they were fighting about, but he was too afraid of making the situation worse to say anything.

On the other hand, Severa was not scared of doing what it took to get her parents to stop arguing. “Does it matter if he’s a great guy or not? He’s married, and so are you, Mother. And if that wasn’t enough to stop you, the fact that I’m married to his son and that your grandchild will be his grandchild as well should definitely do the trick.” She smugly smiled at her mom, who had to contemplate what she had heard for a moment before giving any sort of response.

“Do you think he would be interested in setting up arrangements for watching the child with me?” she finally asked, much to Gaius’ disgust and Severa’s downright shock. “K-kidding, of course. I would never ask to intrude on his quality time with his grandchild, nor would I want him to intrude on mine.”

“Well that’s great, because I don’t think I’d want either of you watching my baby without me present.” Throwing her hair over her shoulder, Severa leaned back in her chair and placed her hand on the top of her stomach’s curve. “I can see it now, me and this baby, never being apart from each other for more than a few minutes, just so I can make sure no one does them wrong. Especially not their grandparents.”

“You say that like we’d do anything bad to the kid on purpose.” Getting over his disgust at his wife, Gaius looked to his daughter and smiled, laughing once a thought came to his mind. “Which we wouldn’t. Worst I know I’d do is take them out for a lesson on how to avoid the police, and even then, you can’t exactly do that with a baby.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Cordelia shook her head at what Gaius said. “How about, rather than insisting on passing along your criminal ways to our grandchild, you come up with something positive to share with them. For instance, why don’t you teach them how to make candy, or how to sew clothing, or any of your other useful skills?”

He gave a noncommittal noise, shrugging as he did. “Maybe the kid won’t be into that sort of stuff. I’m trying to be open-minded here, honestly. We don’t even know what they are, let alone what they’ll be into when they’re older.”

“You raise a good point there…” Cordelia’s voice trailed off as she looked at Severa, her eyes resting on where her daughter’s hand was. “Do any of us here know what that child is?”

“Nope, not yet! And when _I_ know, that doesn’t mean that everyone else is going to know.” Moving her hand around a bit, giving her stomach a few pats, Severa began grinning at her mother. “Although everyone will know at some point, definitely. I just don’t want everyone getting all crazy with the gifts and the spoiling and everything right away.”

“That makes sense. However, I do believe you have just given away your true intentions of this visit.” Standing up, Cordelia pointed towards the doorway out of the kitchen. “Why don’t you two go on ahead and leave now, since you clearly have come here just to get free things from me out of the kindness of my love?”

It took a second for Severa to realize where her mother would be getting that impression from, and by the time she was certain she knew where, she knew it was too late to try arguing it. “Yeah, okay, that’s what we’re here for. So maybe we want to actually have a little bit of time between us knowing what our baby is and everyone else knowing, but it doesn’t mean we don’t need the love and affection from people.” She stood up, knocking her chair over once she was to her feet. “I can’t believe that my own mother would kick me out of her house again, just because I said something she doesn’t agree with.”

“I am not kicking you out, I am making you leave before you succeed in conning me out of money. Now don’t try coming around here again with these intentions.” She managed to get the two out to the front door without too much of a hassle, minus Severa’s snarky comments on the matter, and once they were on the other side of the door and it was firmly locked with them outside and her and Gaius inside, she looked to him with an unimpressed expression. “I don’t want to hear a word about how you were right to want them left outside to begin with,” she warned, noticing the giant grin her husband was wearing. “I may have thought that, for once, Severa would respect me as her mother, but I was wrong. I was so very wrong.”

“She gets that sweet-talking skill from her dad, you know,” he replied, leaning in to kiss her, but he was pushed away and left standing there at the door. “Yeah, totally get it. You’re mad that you weren’t right about something and that I was. Kind of like my innocence every single time you’ve had me arrested.”

On the other side of the door, Severa put her hand to her forehead and sighed. “That went about as well as I expected it would. I should have known she’d get out of helping us through some stupid word choice of mine. She’s too good at that.”

“You know, my parents might actually be easier to talk into helpin’ us out,” Brady said, wrapping his arm around Severa’s shoulders to try and comfort her. “I mean, we’ll get an earful about how we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place and all that, but we’ll get what we want in the end. I know Ma, and I know that she would eventually do whatever it takes to make her son happy.”

“I’m pretty sure I said that when we came here to begin with, but whatever.” Ducking out from under his arm and taking a few steps forward, down towards the street, she was surprised when she didn’t hear him following. “Uh, Brady? You coming with me? We’ve got a lot of walking to do to get to your parents’ house.”

He was looking longingly at the car sitting in the driveway, the one that they had been using prior to Gaius being released from jail. “I’m comin’, just wishin’ we hadn’t had to give the car back to your parents. We could really use it, ya know.” He gave one last look at the vehicle before catching up to her, once again draping his arm over her shoulders. “But, that’s something I guess we can’t worry about at the moment. We’ve got bigger things to deal with, like talkin’ my folks into giving us some money.” The way he sounded slightly wary, but also slightly excited, of the idea made Severa smile and nuzzle herself a bit into his chest, the feeling that everything would turn out okay in the end overtaking her.

The walk didn’t take nearly as long as thought, and it was just Maribelle sitting at the house when they got there; she was more than enthusiastic about seeing the pair, asking a million questions about specific things that neither of them felt up to answering. She noticed the dire clothing situation fairly quickly, remarking that she recognized the shirt as being one of Brady’s, and that it most definitely was not fitting the person wearing it properly. Without even having to be asked, she handed over some amount of money (she wouldn’t let them count it in front of her, but she assured them it was enough for new clothes) and invited them to sit and talk to her about how things were going. With the money in hand, Severa felt like she didn’t need to stay any longer, but Brady insisted that they not just take advantage of the kindness and actually do as asked.

Reluctantly she agreed to it, and so the next few hours were spent at the mercy of every overbearing question Maribelle had to ask them. She held no punches, wanting to know tiny details of the journey the two had been on so far, but her favorite question to fall back on was the same question that had gotten them kicked out of the last place they’d been. “But you _do_ know what this child is, yes?” she asked for what felt like the tenth time, and she was highly disappointed when she got headshakes in return. “How can you not know? It is one of the most important and exciting parts of having a baby!”

“We don’t know because we haven’t been told yet.” Severa gave a huffy sigh, clearly getting annoyed. “We’ll know soon enough, but ‘we’ll’ means me and Brady, not us and everyone else in the whole world.”

“As this child’s grandmother, I deserve to know what to be preparing for the moment you both know.” Maribelle smiled, trying to hide what was surely anger boiling within her. “I want to be as active in this child’s life as possible, and knowing their gender is highly crucial to that plan.”

She covered her mouth and mumbled something in addition to that, something that neither Severa nor Brady caught her say. “Ma, could ya repeat that?” he asked, leaning in a bit closer to where his mom was. “We missed it and it’s probably something you’re going to hold over our heads if we don’t ask ya to say it again.”

“If you insist on me repeating this, I guess I have no choice.” Her smile grew, a sign that whatever Maribelle had initially said wasn’t actually something that had been meant to be heard. “I just want to know that, with this child being the first grandchild in this family, he or she will be given a good name. Something with family meaning. I want you to promise me, right now, that this child will be blessed with a name reminiscent of a grandparent’s.” This was where her eyes narrowed as she looked straight at the couple, both of whom were glancing between each other with fear of what was to come. “Make this promise, or hand the money back over. My generosity comes at a price, you see.”

The temptation was there for Brady, who had been given the money to put in one of his pockets, to pull it out and hand it back. This was not because he didn’t want to do what his mother said, but rather because he hadn’t even started to think about names for the child and didn’t want his options already limited. His hand moved towards his pocket, but Severa shook her head and grabbed his wrist. “We’ll promise you that,” she slowly said, turning to meet Maribelle’s narrowed glare, “on the condition that it doesn’t have to be the grandparents on this side of the family the kid’s named after. Since, you know, I have parents too and they might like the baby named after them.”

Maribelle’s face relaxed, a genuine smile appearing on her lips as opposed to the conniving one that had been there before. “I can accept that. As long as this child bears a name relating back to some grandparent, that’s what matters.” She put her hands on her chest, tilting her head as she kept looking straight at Severa. “But please consider naming the child after me above all others, naturally, as I have shown you both nothing but kindness and love during this time in your lives.”

“And we’re done here.” Not wanting to hear any more, Severa motioned for Brady to get up from where he was sitting, and together they started towards the door. Maribelle called for them to come back, but to no avail, and she was left there wondering what she could possibly have said that made Severa that upset.


	4. Tiny Little Secrets

The very day that they found out that their baby, barring any rapid changes in its genetic code, was going to be a little girl, Brady and Severa swore to each other that they wouldn’t go crazy with letting people know of this development. While the prospect of getting all sorts of free stuff from friends and family was hard to resist, they knew from their experience with their mothers that people would try getting far too involved if they found out about the child’s gender before they were ready. So, to keep everyone they didn’t want knowing the news from finding out, and to keep the chances of their mothers hearing down to a bare minimum, they promised each other that only a select few people would be given the information in complete secrecy.

They may have made it a point to not tell anyone with a history of ruining secrets, yet Maribelle still managed to find out in a matter of days, way before they planned on letting her know. “How dare you keep this wonderful news away from me!” she yelled through the phone upon calling her son. “As your mother, I should have been one of the first to know, but I had to find out secondhand through dear Lissa!”

At the sound of his aunt’s name, Brady groaned, knowing the exact sequence of events that would have resulted in her knowing the news. “Ma, she wasn’t supposed to know either, if that makes ya feel any better,” he said, before being hushed by the groggy Severa that was lying in bed beside him. He looked over at her, on her side with her face contorted in some expression of pain, and sighed. “Listen, Ma, now’s not a good time to be talkin’ this over with ya. I’ll have to call ya back later when I’ve got a chance. Pretty sure I’m bein’ a bother to Sev right now.”

“Not a bother at all,” Severa corrected, her voice soft with a noticeable hint of almost being in tears. “You’re not the one who’s learned to kick around inside of me like I’m a damn playground. Just keep talking to your mom, I don’t mind.” Despite the statement, Brady still ended the call with his mother, repeating the part about how he was being a bother, leading her to sigh dramatically, which quickly turned into a long outcry of pain, complete with shaky words. “Gods damn it, B! I don’t like this at all! Stop blaming yourself for something that is clearly the fault of our child!”

“I’m surprised you’re not lyin’ there blamin’ me for her existing in the first place.” He sat up, hearing her demand for him to stay right where he was so they could talk, and eventually stood next to the bed, leaving her there still very much in pain. “I mean, I know it’s not all my fault, so maybe you see that, but when you start not feelin’ great you like pushin’ blame off on me, and it’s kind of surprisin’ that you haven’t yet.”

She winced, rolling onto her back to try and find a comfortable position to be in. “I know whose fault this is, yeah, but there’s no point in putting the blame on anyone. We can’t feel like our little girl is a problem, even though I would so call this kicking thing a problem. I’ve got to go through this for the next four, or five, or whatever months, and I’m not sure I’m okay with that.”

“Sorry about that, I guess.” He felt quite a bit of regret for being at least partially responsible for her current state, but he knew he couldn’t dwell on it, not with other things on his mind, such as his mother knowing the big news. “You can get through this and we both know it’ll all be fine. You’re one of the strongest ladies I’ve ever met, ya know.”

“Mental and emotional strength are different than physical strength and you know that.” Wincing again, Severa brought herself to a sitting position, her hand pressing down on her side as she did. “Still, hearing you say that makes me think that maybe I’ve got a chance of surviving all this. These kicks hurt, though.”

“From what it sounds like, everythin’ about child-bearing hurts. I’m sure in a matter of days her kickin’ around like that won’t even bother you anymore.” He smiled, although her look of pain was not reassuring in the slightest. “Come on, Sev, you know that’s how it’ll be. Just don’t let it bother you so much now and it definitely won’t be botherin’ ya later.”

She took in a sharp breath. “Oh yeah, that’s so how it’s going to be. In fact, I’ll just ignore the whole ‘she’s kicking my organs’ thing to go right on along with what you’re saying.”

“We just saw pictures of her the other day! There’s no way she’s big or strong enough to be causin’ you that kind of pain!” They could easily have bickered back and forth for hours, but he knew that in the end, they would come to a stalemate, so he took the initiative and left the bedroom, leaving her sitting on the bed yelling for him to come back. While he had the time to be alone, he went into the kitchen, which was as messy as ever and had several containers of pink-frosted baked goods sitting around, looking for something in particular that he knew was in there. By the time Severa dragged herself out of bed to join him, still complaining about the kicking and movements that she wasn’t used to, he had found the small stack of papers he’d been searching for and had relocated to the couch to look through each and every one of them.

“What even are you doing?” she asked, looking at him with a concerned gaze. When she didn’t get an answer, she simply repeated herself. “Seriously, Brady, what are you doing?” His delayed reaction was to hold up a few of the things from the stack, mostly receipts from each of the clothes shopping trips that they’d made, but the envelope of the gender reveal photos was among the items. “Oh, are you just looking for the pictures? Why couldn’t you just tell me that?”

“Because,” he finally said, casting aside everything he didn’t need for what he had collected, “we’ve got to take this over to my parents’ place so Ma can see everything. She knows, there’s nothin’ we can do to take that back, and now we’ve got to let her see the evidence and make good on our promise that gave us the money to buy this stuff.”

Severa’s eyebrows furrowed as she looked at him and what he was holding. “You’re kidding, right? How does she know already? We made sure not to tell Cynthia this time so she didn’t ruin the news.” He was still looking at what he was holding with heavy eyes, meaning he didn’t give her a response. “If not her, who? It couldn’t have been your sister, she’s too trustworthy and loves us both too much. So that leaves one of us, which duh, it wasn’t, or Owain, but he wouldn’t…would he?”

“It must’ve slipped his mind that he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, and he had to have told his dad while at work. Which meant that Aunt Lissa knew probably right after that, and Ma found out through her.” Brady flicked the corner of the envelope. “And now we’ve got to go over there and show her why that’s true, before she comes over here and sees it for herself.”

“I don’t think I want to do that.” The way she spoke was deliberate, every word forceful and serious. “I think I want her to understand that she doesn’t need to see everything for herself and she can suck it up that we’re not showing her.” He gave a small gasp at what he heard, shaking his head rapidly as he knew what not showing Maribelle would mean for them, but she was undeterred in her choice. “Besides, she can appreciate it that we’ve got to either name the kid after her or go back on our word, and I really don’t think I want that kind of karma coming after me.”

“But Sev, we’ve got to show her. There’s not much of a choice at this point.” He waited for her to realize that he was right, but no such realization came; instead, she told him that she was going to back to bed and that he was more than welcome to join her. Opting not to follow, he spent quite a bit of time just sitting there on the couch, staring at what he was holding and how it was his mother’s right to get to see what he had. But going against Severa’s wishes wasn’t something he wanted to do, not when she was already sacrificing so much and working so hard to make things happen, so he had to settle with just calling Maribelle back and telling her everything through the phone.

Even with the amount of time that had gone by since he ended their last call, she still wasn’t thrilled about how the news had been broken to her. “Brady, it should have been you to tell me, not your aunt. While I could tell that she is very much excited for you, it wasn’t the type of excitement I had hoped this revelation would be coupled with.” Something on the other end of the phone was drowning out what Maribelle was saying, and from what he could tell it sounded like she was somewhere out in public. When questioned about that, she laughed. “Why yes, I am out and about today. Now that I know what my grandchild is, I have to begin preparing to spoil her every day until she’s an adult.”

“That’s the exact reason why we weren’t tellin’ anyone until we were ready, Ma. We don’t need her gettin’ spoiled by everyone!” She laughed, which only made him more frustrated. “Seriously, we don’t need it! You spoilin’ her is just going to result in everyone else spoilin’ her, and how are we supposed to prove we’re capable parents when everyone’s doin’ all the shopping for us?”

On her side of the phone, a voice in the background (one he very clearly recognized as being his aunt’s) said, “Is he really complaining about us being nice? I would have thought that he’d love knowing we care this much!”

“Do ya have me on speaker, Ma?” he asked, only to get more laughter in response, this time from both women. “You’re just makin’ this harder and harder for me to tell you no, and I think ya know that. You’re too good at gettin’ what you want.”

“At least I’ve chosen not to push the issue of getting to see pictures of my beautiful granddaughter. I’m sure that you’ll choose to show me those when the time is right.” How did she know that he was torn about that exact topic, and that he had only called her to basically tell her that she wouldn’t be seeing anything? “I am also sure,” she continued, “that you’ll make good on the promise you made with me. I’ve got several wonderful name suggestions that would make it quite easy for you to name the child after me without actually naming her after me.”

“They’re naming the baby after you?” he heard his aunt ask in the background. She must have been given a nod of approval or something, because he heard her dreamily sigh. “That’s got to be such an honor. If Owain ever has kids, I so want him to name one after me!”

“I don’t think him havin’ kids would ever be a good idea.” Brady would have continued that thought, but it wasn’t what he was on the phone for and he didn’t want to waste time of his mother’s day to discuss the nightmare that Owain and Noire having children would create. “But anyway, glad to hear you’re down for not seein’ anything right away. Promise ya, we’re going to keep very good on the name thing. I don’t know what we’re going to decide on, but it’ll fit the agreement.” He thought for a second, before adding, “Which, Ma, the agreement was you give us that bit of money and we do this name thing. None of this spoilin’ stuff.”

Maribelle sighed, and he was sure that she was rolling her eyes at what he was saying. “If you couldn’t pool together the money to properly clothe your wife, I can only assume that you cannot possibly find the funds to purchase anything for your child. I will make sure not to go too overboard on my shopping, but I must buy a few things. Bare essentials. We, as a family, will make sure that your child has the best life possible for her.”

Why were the women in his life impossible for him to argue with? “Yeah, okay Ma, you win. You do what you want, but don’t make it too obvious that you’re pityin’ us.”

“I am not pitying you, Brady, and even I were, you should be thankful that I’m willing to spend my afternoon shopping for a granddaughter I didn’t ask for.” He had to hold his tongue and not remind her that it was technically her fault that the situation where the child was created even came around. “She is a blessing bestowed upon our family thanks to Naga’s intervention, and I will do my best to make everything perfect for her.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said through gritted teeth, hoping that the call would end quickly and without anything else infuriating being said. At that moment, he was rather glad that Severa had insisted they not go see Maribelle in person, because even though he loved his mother, he would not have handled this situation well. For the rest of the time he was on the phone with her, he didn’t say more than one-word answers, because she was getting to be more and more unreasonable, until she decided she needed to leave the conversation to focus on something where she was. The very second she hung up, he threw his phone down on the couch beside him, it bouncing back and smacking him in the face before falling to the floor, the screen shattering upon contact.

The resulting frustrated screaming was enough to wake Severa up from the sleep she’d fallen into, and she came out into the main room, rubbing at her eyes with one hand as she did. “What’s going on out here?” she asked, yawning as she did. “Sounds like someone’s having a meltdown or something. Didn’t think you were as crazy as certain others we know.”

“Ma is out there doing all sorts of shoppin’ for us and we don’t need it,” he replied, kicking his now-broken phone under the couch so that she didn’t see it and freak out about it. “We can handle everything on our own, and she’s not understandin’ that!”

Severa yawned again, stretching as she did, causing her shirt to ride up a bit over her stomach, which exposed the piece of navel jewelry she still insisted on wearing. As she tried fixing the problem and ended up catching her shirt on the little piece of metal, she found herself replying to her husband in a much grumpier tone than she had intended. “She’s allowed to do whatever she wants, really. We can’t stop her from still being stupidly obsessed with helping us out, even though we’ve said we don’t want all this attention from her. Pretty sure she’s just playing the role of grandma really, really well!”

“Geez, Sev, you don’t have to yell at me about that.” Not noticing that she was yelling out of self-inflicted pain, not anger, he slumped over onto his side on the couch. “But if you’re so set on Ma bein’ helpful, I want you to call your mom and tell her the news right now. See how she reacts to it.”

After collecting herself and apologizing, Severa took him up on that challenge, calling her mom and expecting a long conversation that would most likely have ended in both participating parties being angry with one another. She instead got a voicemail message, and had to settle for quickly telling her mother that they needed to talk at the first chance she had. Cordelia must not have bothered checking her inbox for days, because it wasn’t until a week later that there was a call back, which naturally happened while Severa was working and couldn’t spare a minute to explain things to her mother.

For nearly a month, the two missed each other as they called back and forth, trying to be able to have a conversation that desperately needed to happen. The holiday season was drawing close when they finally were both able to talk at the same time, and with Brady sitting right next to her for moral support in the endeavor, Severa told her mother with pride that she would be gaining a granddaughter in a short amount of time. This news, while welcome, was merely not enough for Cordelia, who then asked for different details about the child, including expected date of birth, which she was able to provide, and potential name.

In regards to what the child was going to be named, all they had ever discussed was that they would be keeping true to that promise and that she would be named after at least one grandparent; an answer along those lines was what Brady was expecting to hear Severa give. But when she laughed and gave an _actual_ name that he’d never heard her even express slight interest in before that moment, he was confused but waited until the phone call was ended to ask anything about it. “Hey, question, Sev. What’s with that name ya told your mom?”

“That’s going to be our little girl’s name, obviously,” Severa replied, smiling as she did while wrapping her arms around her stomach. “I thought it fit her really well, because it’s so similar to my name and I love my name. It just kind of came to me the other day and I figured you’d go right along with it since I already love it.”

“I would go along with it, but it’s…” He shook his hand in a wavy, unsure manner. “Not exactly what I was thinkin’ when we got into this baby namin’ business, especially not since we’re supposed to name her after one of our parents.”

Severa looked offended at what he said and scoffed, “She so will be named after one of our parents. My mother, actually. We’re naming our baby Serena Cordelia, and that’s that.”

“No, we’re not doin’ that. Can’t just name her after your mom when mine means so much more to me than yours means to you.” Moving his hand to his chin, which he stroked a few times in thought, he came up with a new suggestion while she grumbled about how much she liked the name she’d chosen herself. “How about this, we do some research, maybe look into some other names that are out there, and come to the decision of what her name is goin’ to be together? I get it that you like what you’ve picked, but I want to honor Ma as well.”

“So you’re saying we’ve got to pick a name that sounds pretentious and gross like hers. Lovely. So much for us raising a normal child.” She sounded upset, and rightfully so, but down in her heart she knew that Brady had a real point. She had to simply let go of what she desperately wanted and find some sort of compromise. They found said compromise by building a list of names they liked, giving the reason for why each one was on there; as it was basically set in stone that her middle name was going to be one grandmother’s name, if there was to be any inclusion of the other grandmother’s name, it would have to be through some combination of the first name. Severa was right, in that the names they were left choosing between all sounded pretentious, but eventually they were able to find something that worked out more than she liked to admit.

The one problem with the name they did find was that they weren’t sure how to spell it. “Okay, it’s not a million syllables, sure,” she said, looking at the name they’d circled on their list, “but it still looks like it belongs to some snooty rich girl. I get it, B, you come from a wealthy family, but I’m not letting their money dictate what my baby’s name looks like.”

“The fact that we’re havin’ to name her after Ma already proves that we’ve done that, but I get what you’re sayin’.” He narrowed his eyes, squinting down at the list. “Maybe we can drop the ‘e’ off the end? Do ya think that’ll help any?”

She shrugged and rewrote the name below where it was the first time, minus the last letter. “I don’t think that looks any better, honestly,” she admitted, and when he agreed with her she sighed. “Maybe we’ve got to try harder. But how hard can it be to come up with a silly name for our baby?”

“Don’t give up yet, Sev. Take off another letter. It might just be the double ‘l’ there that’s throwin’ things off, and that’s an easy fix.” She nodded, writing the name again with the next letter missing as dictated, and he actually smiled at the result. “Looks a lot prettier than it did before, I’d say. Sure, Ma’s probably going to complain that it’s not spelled like hers, but it should sound like it, yeah?”

Mouthing the name a few times, her lips and tongue getting used to the way it felt passing through them, she gave a quick nod. “It should, and it feels, well, right for me to be practicing saying it. Like it’s the name she was meant to have all along.”

“And all it took was askin’ for some names sort of like the one you liked to begin with.” Brady practiced the name as well, his voice a breathless whisper as he repeated it over and over again, his lips eventually tingling from it. “I get what you’re sayin’, honestly. It does feel like the name she’s meant to have.”

“So that’s it? This is what we’re definitely going to name her?” When she got a nod of approval, Severa felt like tears were beginning to fill her eyes, and when she blinked she could feel them slipping down her cheeks. “Let me test it out for real before we make this decision definite.” She took a deep breath before softly saying, “My little girl, Lunabel Cordelia. Little Lunabel. Little…” She trailed off to gasp, feeling a round of kicking from within her. “I think she loves it, B. She knows it’s for her.”

“Aw, you’re sayin’ that our little Lunabel loves her name already?” he asked, laughing as he did, and when Severa told him to feel the kicks in response for himself, he knew that this was ultimately the right decision for them to be making in regards to her name.

The biggest problem with them both having settled on the perfect name for the child was that it could now be used in arguments, particularly when Severa wasn’t getting her way and wanted Brady to feel bad for going against her. As the weeks droned on, and she was trying to keep working hard with that child growing within her, she became more and more irritable, not wanting to deal with nearly anything that wasn’t to her liking. Some days, that included anything involving conversation or human interaction, and it was those days that she would absolutely rip into Brady, yelling at him about how her and their little Lunabel both didn’t want to have to have him around. For the most part, he just let it roll off his shoulders, crying about it only when he knew she wouldn’t be around for it.

Sometimes, though, he would have to get out of their apartment and find somewhere else to be for a few hours while she calmed down and got her head about her. Since the weather had turned cooler and aimlessly walking around the streets wasn’t a viable option, he always had to find someplace that would open their doors for him. His parents’ house was a common destination, but after so many times of being caught there when his father got off work he was told to stop hiding from his problems and to face them head-on (Chrom was definitely a stronger man than he could ever dream of being), he had to find somewhere else to go.

Sneaking off to Owain’s place became the new thing to do, on those days where Severa had it out for his blood. His cousin was always willing to lend a hand to someone who needed it, especially someone who he cared for so dearly, although the first thing he’d ask about when he’d see Brady at the door was if he was there to get more sweets for Severa and the baby. “Does it look like I am?” he’d always reply, tears staining his cheeks, and his cousin would open the door all the way and let him in.

“Dude, you’ve got to stop letting her kick you out like this. It’s your place too, and if she’s getting crazy now just because she’s got your baby inside her, can you imagine what she’ll be like once she’s actually got to take care of the baby?” Owain may have been supportive, but he sure didn’t understand the intricacies of the situation. “It’ll be madness! You’ll be over here every day and some nights too, I’m sure!”

“I don’t get kicked out, I leave on my own because I don’t want to deal with it. She likes blamin’ me for her bad moods and for everythin’ that’s going on with her, even though we always have said that it’s not my fault.” Giving a heavy sigh, Brady took his usual seat against the wall of the mostly-bare living area in the home. “And ever since we came up with Lunabel’s name, she’s been makin’ absolute sure to use it at me. The kid can’t hate me for what I do or don’t do, she’s not even really livin’ yet!”

“It’s just Severa working out her anger through whatever ways she can. Maybe she should take up a hobby, like baking!” Owain looked towards the kitchen, where Noire was predictably baking something. While she had lowered the amount of treats she took over to the other couple, she was still taking them several things a week, all of which Severa tried to eat on her own, despite the toll all the snacking had taken on her already. He actually seemed to remember this fact, adding, “Or maybe she can do something else. Too much baking might be a bad thing for her.”

“Baking can never be a bad thing for anyone!” Noire chimed in, having heard what was said. “When you can create something from your bad feelings, the world just feels like a much better place to be in!”

The corners of Brady’s mouth perked up, but he still looked distraught. “No, trust me, if Sev started bakin’ on top of what we get brought to our place, I’m pretty sure the world would end for me in a week. You guys weren’t there when she realized that most of the growin’ that she’d done wasn’t because of havin’ a baby. She about killed me for it. Said I should’ve stopped her from eatin’ so much, even though I tried.”

“Don’t hate yourself for her being a bit off her rocker,” Owain said, giving his cousin’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “Now why don’t we take your mind off these real-world issues and get to having some fun? Even escaping into games for a little bit will turn your spirits around, for sure.” His words, although true, were just inviting Brady to ignore what was bothering him (that was, the fact that Severa kept taking her anger out on him through her words) for the sake of some mindless gaming. In the short-term, it worked, but in the long-term, it did nothing but make him have to come over more to get away.

Sometime after the turn of the year, while he was hiding from a completely livid Severa—she had taken out her navel piercing with the intent of changing the jewelry but had completely forgotten and due to how tight her skin was stretched she couldn’t even fathom putting it back in—he came up with an idea that could possibly make it up to her. “Guys, hear me out,” he said, head buried in his hands as he contemplated things over his hurt feelings. “What if we worked together and threw Sev some sort of birthday party? That would be a couple weeks from now, sure, but it would be somethin’ that would make her happy if it went well.”

“Good idea, but I think I may have a better one.” Owain clasped his hands together in the excitement of what he’d come up with. “What if, instead of just a birthday party for Severa, we put together some sort of celebration for the baby as well? That way, she can’t complain that we’re neglecting the other major part of her. A foolproof plan, if you ask me.”

“I actually like the sound of that, yeah,” Brady mumbled, uncovering his face to look at his grinning cousin. “As long as you’re helpin’ me plan this and gettin’ as many people in on it as possible without Sev findin’ out, I think we can make this work out.”

Owain nodded, thinking a bit about what they could do. “Where she works has private rooms for this sort of thing, so we can have it there. Maybe get Cynthia in on it as long as she swears to keep it secret? I don’t know on that part.” He clicked his tongue a few times, still thinking as he made more suggestions. “I’m sure my mother would be down for helping, as would yours. Your sister, obviously, would want to be part of this. She can help with the plans. Noire would definitely be in charge of baking for us, and…hm. I don’t know what—“

He was cut off by the door opening without warning. Brady, fully expecting it to be Severa looking for him with murder in her eyes, screamed loudly, but was shushed by Owain, who told him to actually look at who was there. It was a reddish-haired man, who waved at them both. “Sorry that I’m over here a bit late. Lunch took longer than usual. Cynthia and I got caught up in the most lovely of conversations, this time about the flower shop and the dance studio and how I can do both at once.”

“Hey there, Inigo. Funny you walk in right now, speaking of flowers, when a couple bright bunches might be a great addition to this party we’re planning.” Owain, motioning for the newcomer to sit on the floor next to him, expected to have to answer a question of what party he was talking about, but Inigo just accepted it for what it was. He didn’t even seem to be fully paying attention to the chatter between the cousins about the party, instead just absentmindedly staring into space, contemplating his thoughts.

When he heard Cynthia be mentioned in the conversation, he snapped back to reality and laughed. “What a doll, that girl is. So dedicated to her job and making a life for herself. I love every moment I spent with her, even if she is just taking my order and being pleasant towards me because her job dictates it. Now why do you two bring her up?”

“We’re thinking about having her help us with this party we’re planning, you lovesick loon,” Owain replied, no longer wanting to have to answer questions about things that had already been discussed. “And since you’ve got that flower shop gig of yours, maybe you could help us as well.”

“What sort of party might this be? A formal engagement? If so, might I request to bring a certain someone as my date?” Inigo wrung his hands before him. “I understand that you both have known her since childhood, so a simple ‘no’ will suffice if needed.”

Brady laughed, snorting a bit as he did. “This is definitely not a formal thing. Can’t even begin to imagine how tellin’ Sev to put on a nice dress would go over. It’s just goin’ to be a little get-together for her birthday and to celebrate Lunabel, that’s all.”

“Hm, sounds like something I could provide flowers for, free of charge for friends of mine.” He was still wringing his hands, but Inigo seemed to be a bit more comfortable talking about flowers than he did potential dates. They continued talking for a while, Noire coming out and joining them after a few minutes to share her ideas for what she could possibly bake for the occasion, and even when Severa eventually came to get Brady, her anger mostly subsided but still yelling at him when she found him, they all promised that this one meeting wouldn’t be the end of the planning.

The next couple of weeks got more in-depth with the plans, as everyone else who was invited (minus the guest of honor) found out and began preparing what they were going to provide. By the time the morning of January twenty-first rolled around, everyone was ready, everything was set in stone, and there seemed to be nothing that could possibly go wrong.

* * *

Of all the things to be told upon getting to work on her birthday, the news that her afternoon would be spent working on a private party was not a good one, but Severa knew that if it was Cynthia telling her it, it was far too late to argue against. “You don’t even take large parties,” she said upon the conclusion of what her friend was saying. “Why does it have to be us doing this?”

“Well, you see, the party wanted simply the best server we’ve got,” Cynthia replied with a huge grin, pointing at Severa, “but since that server can’t carry all the heavy trays parties require, I got assigned to help out!” Cue Severa griping about how that meant she definitely wouldn’t be making any money on the party, which she immediately had a response for. “Hey, I’m just helping with the heavy stuff. You’re still doing most of the work, and with that bun in your oven, I’m sure you can sweet talk some mad tips from everyone!”

“As if people will really tip me more just because of what I look like.” She tried to speak in a disbelieving tone, but it was far too obvious that Severa knew people would do exactly that. Cynthia didn’t call her out on the lie, instead choosing to ask if it would be okay if they started setting up for what was to come. It absolutely was, especially since it gave them a chance to both work and discuss the party that was coming in a bit more. According to what Cynthia had been told, it wasn’t too large of a group, but they needed a room to themselves because they were bringing in a lot of extra things—including treats. “Sounds like some group giving a workshop. Hopefully they’ll share the snacks with their pregnant and miserable birthday girl of a server.”

Cynthia raised her eyebrows in judgment. “Okay, hold on. Pregnant, obviously, and birthday girl, I knew that, but miserable? What, are you sad that you’re stuck working today?”

“No, it’s these dumb false contractions I’ve been having. Freaked me and Brady both out the first time they happened. Didn’t know it could get worse than the kicking under my ribs, but it clearly did.” She sighed deeply, picking up some plates and setting them out on one of the tables that Cynthia had moved into position. “I swear, when this little girl is old enough, she is paying for all this suffering I’ve done for her.”

“Aw, don’t blame her! It’s just one of the joys of mommyhood! My mom tells me about some of the things I did to her before I was born, but she tells me them as warnings, not trying to make me feel bad about having been a baby.” Still moving tables, Cynthia only stopped what she was doing when she heard Severa give a low groan of pain that startled her. “What’s wrong? Are you having those contractions right now?”

“They don’t just go away,” Severa snapped, clutching her side with one hand while arranging silverware around her plates with the other. “They’ll fade after a while but for now I’ve got to suck it up and suffer through them. Hopefully the party will understand why I’m going to be bitchy with them, and if they don’t, I’ll…” Her threat faded into nothing as she saw the manager on duty poke her head into the room, and when the manager beckoned for her to come to her, she swallowed down in fear. “I d-didn’t mean what I was saying, promise!”

The manager smiled and laughed. “No worries, just here to come get you for a quick chat about these next couple weeks before you’re out of here for that baby of yours.” Sighing in relief, Severa went to tell Cynthia she’d be right back, but the brown-haired woman gave her a grin and a thumbs-up back at her friend, as if she had known this was coming.

And, in all actuality, she had. The very moment she saw Severa and the manager go into the kitchen, Cynthia stopped what she was doing and ran to the front of the restaurant, nearly colliding with several other servers on her way. Upon getting to the front, she saw a good amount of the expected members of the party, all of their arms filled with decorations, gifts, and supplies. “I think we’ve got ten, maybe fifteen, minutes to get everything all perfect,” she announced, before leading everyone back to the private room where she gave another announcement: “She’s convinced this is just some normal party, so she will totally be surprised when it’s actually for her!”

“I’m honestly surprised ya managed to keep this a secret from her,” Brady remarked as he sat down the box of gifts he had carried in. “Normally gettin' ya involved with something spells danger for it stayin’ secret.”

“I learned from my last mistake,” she admitted, before wrapping herself around him in a quick hug. “Oh gods though, it was so hard not saying that you all were going to be here, and that this wouldn’t be a waste of her time! She was so worried that she wouldn’t make any money today!”

“She certainly will be making money, plus all these presents for her and the child both.” Maribelle, setting down the box that she’d been holding, let out a soft laugh. “Whoever had the idea for a combination birthday celebration and baby shower deserves to be praised.”

Owain, unboxing the cake he’d been responsible for carrying in, puffed his chest out a bit. “That would be me, Aunt Maribelle. This original idea comes to us all courtesy of—oh hey, is that an actual picture on the cake?” He had gotten distracted by taking a look at the cake, which Noire had decorated with an edible version of a picture of Severa that had been taken under the guise of “making memories”. Everyone who wasn’t hanging signs and streamers gathered to look, all in almost much shock as Owain had been.

While they murmured and whispered, Noire began beaming from the praise. “I had to try really hard to make that work out,” she said, to the approval of the group. “But even still, I think I’m more proud of the cookies than the cake.” To demonstrate why she felt that way, she took a single cookie off the tray and held it up in front of everyone, showing them the hand-iced moon on top of it, which had a small bell painted on at one of its points. “I just, uh, thought that the visual representation of her name was…really cute…”

“That’s so cool, Noire. Can’t thank ya enough for doin’ that,” Brady told her, at the exact same moment that Owain proudly exclaimed his love for his incredibly creative wife. The cousins looked at each other, knowing they had spoken over one another, and laughed about it for a moment, all while Noire timidly kept holding the cookie for everyone else to admire.

“Uh, excuse me,” a voice interrupted, and everyone froze, turning to look at who had joined them. It was a restaurant worker, waving for Cynthia to come closer to him, which she did, fully expecting to tell her some bad news. “Your regular is here,” the man said, “and I explained to him that you’re unavailable at the moment, but he insisted he not leave and—“

“As _I_ tried explaining, I’m not here for a table for one,” Inigo said, entering around the worker and taking hold of Cynthia’s hand once he was standing right next to her. “I have come today to do a delivery of very important goods, but there are far too many flowers for myself and my mother to carry in on our own. Perhaps the lovely server in charge of today’s festivities would care to assist me?” Cynthia blushed and giggled, and after he gingerly kissed her hand they left the room with the other worker right behind them; the pair came back within a minute, each carrying two large bouquets of flowers, and now trailing behind them was a petite pink-haired woman who merely sat the smaller bundles of flowers she was carrying down, bid Inigo farewell, and left the restaurant. With the last decorations now there, everyone worked quickly to get everything in place, making what once was a plain room in the restaurant into an elaborately-decorated party room.

When they heard Severa’s voice coming closer to where they were, her still in the middle of conversation with the manager, everyone’s reaction was to stop what they were doing and sit down somewhere. The only exception to this was Brady, who chose to stand close to the door, hoping Severa would see him before the decorations. If she did, she must not have realized it was him, because her eyes were wildly darting around the room, looking at everything that had been set up and everyone who had gathered in her honor. She opened her mouth to speak but was met with silence, and then her eyes closed tightly as she stumbled to lean against the wall. What should have been a loud cry of “Surprise!” turned into a loud chorus of asking if she was okay, the only person not panicking being the one closest to her.

“Hey, let’s not start this party out with ya havin’ to sit down to collect yourself,” Brady told her, stepping closer to hug her tightly. “It’s all okay. We’re all here for ya today, every single one of us.”

“Could have used some advanced warning on this one. Had I known I’d be serving my own party, I’d have made more of an effort to ignore the pain this morning and look like a respectable member of society.” Grimacing, she pushed herself out of the hug and walked to the center of the room, taking another look at all the decorations. “This is some kind of fancy celebration here, and all for me! I feel honored, although…” She placed a hand on her stomach and tapped a finger a few times, especially when looking at the pastel pink bags a lot of the gifts were in. “I can’t help but think this might be more for Lunabel than me.”

“Why can’t it be for both?” Maribelle loudly asked, pointing to a carefully-strung “Happy Birthday” sign that was flanked with stereotypical, storks-and-bundles baby shower decorations. “Mother and child both deserve to be honored on this fine day.”

Sitting next to her mom, Lucina nodded. “While I can say shopping for my niece is one of the more fun activities I can think of doing, shopping for one of my best friends, who doubles as my sister-in-law, is a much more satisfying experience.”

“Plus, we baked you a cake!” Owain found himself elbowed harshly in the side for the incorrect statement. “Er, Noire baked you a cake,” he sheepishly corrected, “but I helped her with getting the ingredients. She did everything else.”

“And, best of all,” Cynthia chimed in, jumping from the seat she had taken, “I totally lied to you earlier and you’re not having to do all the work here! You just kick back and take it easy, and I’ll make sure everything’s perfectly fine for everyone!”

Severa’s eyes met Cynthia’s, shock and worry filling them. “But that means I’m spending my time here making no money, and I don’t think management will be happy if they hear I’m slacking off while on the clock. Sorry, but I’m still serving this party, even if it is for me.”

“Actually, no, you’re not.” Brady sounded stern as he stepped into the conversation, Severa turning to look at him with even more shock. “We talked with your manager back when we set this party up. You’ve just got to do some helpin’ out, not too much work, and you’ll be fine. And Cynthia knows that she’s splittin’ the money with you, no matter how much work you do.” Cynthia rapidly nodded, but Severa still looked worried. “Come on, Sev, today’s a big day for ya, just let things happen how we want them.”

“And what if I don’t want them to happen like that? What if I want to make my money like the honest person I try to be? I’m not taking simple handouts from people I know!” She turned back to look at everyone, with their smiling yet somewhat surprised faces all staring back at her. “I don’t deserve this sort of kindness from everyone, not unless I do something to earn it.”

“I’d say that bein’ a friend or family member to everyone here would make you earn what we’re doin’ for ya here today.” Brady placed his hand on Severa’s shoulder, and she brushed it off, something that he actually took offense to. “Come _on_ Sev! Stop actin’ this way and just accept that this is happenin’ right now!”

She defiantly shook her head, making motions to leave the room when he grabbed her to hold her in place. “I’m not doing this the way you want it, end of story. I’m not sitting around and being catered to when I should be doing work.”

“Fine, you can help me with drinks and orders and stuff,” Cynthia finally conceded, hanging her head a bit. “But that’s all I’m letting you help with. I’m taking charge of this party because it’s the best gift I can give to you and your baby both today!’’

A loud chant erupted amongst everyone sitting at the table; Owain started it, naturally, banging his hand down on the table as he did, and it spread around quicker than wildfire. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to let Severa know that her being stubborn was doing nothing more than prolong the inevitable ending to the day. “Let it go!” they all shouted, table hits in sync with one another. Some of them were laughing, some doing the chanting stoically, and some looked deathly serious about her just giving up the fight and taking the opportunity to be paid for not actually working.

“I get it, everyone,” she said after listening to everyone chant for a minute or two. “I’ll let Cynthia do all my dirty work and I’ll just take part in the celebration you’ve got planned for me. As long as the only surprise here is that this is happening in the first place, I guess I can’t complain too much about things.” The chanting subsided, but replacing it was some awkward laughter and a few of the people trying to look anywhere but at her. “Okay, really? What else did you all do?”

No one wanted to own up to doing more than planning the surprise party, so she had to accept that if she were to find anything out, it would have to be naturally. While Cynthia started taking care of everyone as if they were regular customers and not a group of people she knew personally, Severa had to endure becoming the guest of honor at the party, everyone rushing to talk to her and ask her a million questions she had no real desire to answer. For every time she was wished a happy birthday, she was asked several questions about her current physical condition, people wanting to get as much information about the baby as they could in as little conversation time as possible. For most of the questions, she would just direct them to asking Brady instead, trying to move on to anything that could be more interesting than people wanting to know about how she felt in regards to having a child residing within her.

By far the nosiest person of all was Maribelle, who kept asking things over everyone else. She chose not to move from where she was sitting, as to not get trampled by the other partygoers, and she didn’t seem to care that everyone had come up with some sort of order as to how to approach Severa. Whenever she had something to ask, she’d simply cut off whoever was speaking and talk over them, despite her questions always being ones that were deflected. She didn’t even seem to mind that she wasn’t getting answers to what she was asking, because she just kept trying—until she asked a question, about half an hour after the party officially started, that got everyone else to move away from the quizzing. “I’m sure that dear Severa would like to be able to sit down and rest those tired and swollen feet of hers, rather than being swarmed by everyone,” she started, earning a reluctantly agreeing mumble from Severa. “So why don’t we have her start opening gifts instead?”

“You know, I never thought I’d hear such beautiful words come out of your mouth,” Severa replied, as everyone backed away from her to let her take a seat at the big table. “I didn’t come in to work today expecting to get actual gifts, so whatever you’ve all brought is bound to be better than what I assumed I’d be getting today.”

“I would love to be first to present a gift, then,” Maribelle said, finally standing up and coming around to the other side of the table, picking up the box of gifts she’d brought to the restaurant with her and carrying it around. “Or, rather, a wide selection of gifts, purchased over the last few months, beginning with the moment that I learned that I was to be blessed with a granddaughter.” She saw how Severa began to look annoyed when she heard that timeframe, and after adjusting how she was holding the box, she gave a wave of her hand. “Oh, I am well aware of how you didn’t want any of us to spoil the little one, but I couldn’t help myself. A first grandchild only happens once.”

She set the box down at Severa’s feet, expecting her to get into it herself, but after a few moments of Severa staring down at it and getting more and more annoyed that she couldn’t just bend over and get it, the box was picked back up. “I can’t believe that just happened. Seriously. Thirty-five weeks pregnant and someone assumes I’m going to be able to get something off the ground.” Severa sounded equal parts hurt and amused at what had just happened, and after Maribelle apologized for it she turned all the emotion towards amusement. “No big deal. Guess you’ll have to keep holding that for me while I go through it, won’t you?”

Blinking a time or two, Maribelle nodded, and so she was stuck standing there, the box in her arms, while Severa went through and opened each gift that was inside of it, one at a time. She remarked on every one, all of which were some sort of necessary item for raising a child, always having some sort of smart comment to make. Once she got through opening the bags of bottles and little clothing, she looked Maribelle straight in the eyes and genuinely smiled. “Thanks for all this,” she said, holding a few of the outfits she’d been given. “It really, honestly, shows that you care about me, and your son, and our child.”

“Well of course I care about you! I could never not care about someone who loves my Brady so much, and as this child is his I have to care about her just as much as both of her parents.” Setting the box down again, she moved to give Severa a quick hug, surprised when the orange-haired woman returned the gesture. “You will make a lovely mother to my granddaughter, and I am so glad that he chose you to be with in this world.”

“Aw, Ma, you’re makin’ me tear up hearin’ ya say that kind of stuff,” Brady said with a sniffle, watching his mother and wife having their exchange. “Never thought you’d be approvin’ Sev for who she is, but here ya are, doin’ just that.”

“Before he bursts into tears, can I give my present?” Lucina asked, pulling one of the bags out of the gift pile. “Or, rather, I should say, show mine and Laurent’s present? It’s not quite ready for her to have it yet.” No one objected to the idea, so while her mother stepped away, she took her spot at Severa’s side. “I wish Laurent was here to help explain why this is what we’re giving you, but he’s busy and will be late, if he shows up at all, and you need to see this and understand it.”

“It just looks like a bag to me,” Severa said with a laugh, taking the bag and pulling out the thick book from inside of it. She looked at the cover, pink with light polka-dots and a small teddy bear on the front, and scrunched her face in disgust. “Liked it more when it was just a bag. Is this some parenting guide? I’m not into that sort of reading.”

“It’s not a guide to parenting. Here, open it up.” Carefully, Severa did as instructed, opening to a page about halfway through the book; she found that it was covered in writing, but more importantly, it had a copy of one of the sonogram pictures that had been taken to determine the gender of the child. She gasped, looking at Lucina for some sort of answer, which she was ready to provide. “It’s a book documenting all the milestones of your pregnancy. Laurent suggested we make it for you, since you don’t seem like the kind of person to care about these things, and so we’ve been putting this together over the past few weeks.”

“But it’s not done, so we’re just going to leave it at this point?” Severa still looked disappointed with what she was holding, although she did flip the page a few times to see what else the book had within in.

Lucina shook her head. “Not quite. As I said, we’re not ready to give this to you today because it’s not finished. Once your sweet Lunabel is in your arms, we will be ready to give the completed product to you, filled to the brim with interesting facts that Laurent feels you would be interested in looking back on, as well as the important things that matter only to you and this journey.”

“Why does it look like some of this stuff you got from…” Looking at one of the pages closely, Severa rolled her eyes. “Oh my gods, Brady, did you really have to tell your sister some of these things? I would like to never remember some of this stuff!”

“She asked, and I just happened to know what she needed!” He was still sniffling, rubbing tears from his eyes. “I bet years from now you’ll love knowin’ some of those things, even if they are kind of weird!”

She closed the book, but when she went to put it back in the bag, Lucina shook her head once more. “Not yet, Severa. There’s something else in there for you.”

“What else could there possibly be?” Setting the book aside to reach into the bag, she was pleasantly shocked when she felt fabric, and completely surprised when she pulled her hand out and was holding a visibly worn blue onesie that read “My Aunt is the Coolest”. Her eyes, which had narrowed when she saw this was a used piece of clothing, widened when she realized why that was. “This isn’t something you just went out and bought, is it?”

“That it isn’t. Mother had kept a box of baby things from when Brady and I were young, and this was something in there. According to pictures at home, I wore that very article when I was small, a gift to me from my dear aunt, and I figured that passing it down to my niece would be a good idea.” Lucina smiled, now putting the book back into the bag it came from. “By all means, she doesn’t have to wear it more than once. But I do ask that I get a picture of her in it, for memory’s sake.”

“I think I can manage that for you,” Severa replied, having to stop herself from tearing up as she did. Behind her, she could hear Brady absolutely losing himself in emotions, overcome too much by the adorable display of care.

“That’s all I ask, honestly.” Stepping back to where she’d been sitting before, Lucina made sure to lean into her mother’s ear and whisper, “Thanks for letting me give her that,” to her before taking her seat once more. Maribelle didn’t reply, but the smile on her face that appeared as she looked at Lucina was enough of an answer.

More gifts were given, all of which were the typical baby shower fare; it seemed as if everyone who was in attendance had discussed what they were going to bring, because nothing was duplicated and there was more than enough of everything. It was slightly overwhelming to Severa, who was basically opening every gift and adding it to a growing pile of necessities for her baby. Every so often, someone would move the pile elsewhere to let a new one start growing, which was necessary because of how much had been given—and, most notably, no one was placing any claim to any of the stuff. “Okay, seriously, you guys have spoiled Lunabel too much here,” she said after opening another bag that had nothing but baby clothes in it. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“If you didn’t ask for this, you definitely didn’t ask for what else is coming!” Owain quickly said in return, before covering his mouth at what he had just said. She looked at him, eyebrows raised, asking him without words to clarify what he meant. “I, er, mean, there’s bound to be other gifts as well, right? Several important people aren’t here right now, after all, so there’s time for more things to be bought.”

“Owain, you dunce, you weren’t supposed to say anything,” Noire whispered at him, before realizing that she now had Severa’s eyes on her. To try and steer the attention back to what had been happening, she suggested, “Why don’t we just forget that he said anything and keep opening gifts?”

“Or we can start eating!” Cynthia’s voice brought gift-opening to a grinding halt, as she was carrying with her a large tray of food that had been ordered. “Well, you guys can start eating, technically. I’ve still got to bring more out for you all before I can eat too.” After she doled out her dishes she took her tray and came back moments later with another full one, setting the plates from it in front of everyone who needed one, before she sat down in her chair and sighed happily. “Oh man, I think I did a real good job on that one!”

Everyone who could without looking rude agreed with her with various sounds of approval, but Severa was the only one with something to actually say. “You might have done a decent job, but I’m curious. Is you taking care of us and splitting the money with me your present in all of this? I haven’t opened a gift yet that screams ‘Cynthia bought this’ and I’m shocked.”

“That’s because I didn’t buy anything that’s here. I gave my money to Owain and Noire and they bought my gifts for me. So I totally don’t know what I got you.” She looked over at the pile of gifts that sat towering in the corner, seeing if anything caught her eye. “I could claim some of that stuff if you need me to, though!”

“No, it’s fine, I was just curious. Figured I ask you since you weren’t in here while I opened everything.” Severa shrugged, before looking back at someone who flinched when he caught her gaze. “But if you don’t know what you got me, doesn’t that mean that Owain does?”

“You would think so,” he replied, mouth half-full of food, “but truth is, I gave the money straight to my mom and she went crazy with the shopping. My job today was helping with the cake and the cookies.” It was a believable story, and Severa had half a mind to continue asking until she knew what was given to her by who. She had to be stopped by a somewhat still-crying Brady, who had to motion towards his aunt and mention that she would have gone shopping with his mother, and so there was no real knowing who bought what.

Midway through the meal, voices could be heard coming closer to the room, and nearly everyone turned to look and see who was joining them. Standing in the doorway were three people, the presence of which made different people smile. Chrom was at the front, in his hand the handles of a large bag, and when he saw everyone staring at him he set it down and waved hello to them all; beside him was Cordelia, trying to look anywhere but at the mayor next to her and her daughter before her; and behind them both, but just tall enough to be seen over their heads, was Vaike, who seemed to be holding something above the other two so that Owain could see it.

“It looks like the rest of the party has arrived,” Maribelle said, clasping her hands together and clearing off the chair next to her so that her husband could come sit there. He did, but not before dropping off the bag at Severa’s feet. “Oh, darling, did you really have to set that there? She can’t reach that.”

He took his seat, staring blankly into Maribelle’s eyes. “I don’t think I understand what you mean. She’s got working arms, doesn’t she?”

While Maribelle set him straight, using arm motions as a means of explanation, Cordelia went to her daughter’s side, kneeling down beside her. “Hello, Severa. My apologies that I didn’t bring a gift with me. I was under the impression that this was just for you, not for you and the child, and you know that I don’t give you very many gifts.”

“No big deal. Used to it.” She chuckled, watching as Cordelia’s expression turned to one of relief. “Surprised that you’re actually here, though. Figured that you and Daddy would have come here together, not just you.” The relief faded at mention of Gaius, causing Severa to assume the worst. “He didn’t get arrested again, did he? Please tell me he didn’t!”

“He had a court date that he couldn’t miss, or he would have been arrested. He really wanted to be here to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, but—“ Her explanation was cut off by what sounded like metal hitting the table, and she froze, before her and Severa both turned to look for the source of the noise. Next to them, Brady was hunched over, trying to grab something off the floor, with Owain across the table laughing at him, and Vaike still in the doorway looking slightly shocked at what had happened, but without any of them giving answers there wasn’t much to assume. “Anyway,” she restarted, “he wanted to be here but he had to follow the law and so he’s not here. He sends his love.”

Severa nodded, sighing as he did. “Sure he does. Now help me open this present that Brady’s dad brought for me. I swear, if it’s more clothing I might cry.” Cordelia was happy to help with opening the gift, holding the bag up so that Severa could reach into it and pull out a fairly large stuffed bear, wearing what looked to be a custom-printed shirt with Lunabel’s name on it. “Oh gods, this thing is gigantic! She’s going to love it, someday, maybe.” She put it back in the bag, turning to smile at Chrom. “Thanks, mister mayor. Good to see you’re as in love with your grandchild as your wife is.”

“Er, you’re welcome?” he replied, not sure if the second part was a compliment or not. “I assumed Maribelle would do the majority of the shopping, so I bought something that could be used as decoration for wherever the baby ends up sleeping.” She didn’t notice it, but Chrom shot a glance at the person who was _still_ in the doorway, who put his hands up defensively when he caught it. “That is, if you have somewhere for her to sleep.”

She honestly had no clue if she should answer that or not, so she chose not to and instead resumed eating her meal, acting as if nothing had just happened. The three latecomers had their orders taken by a still-cheerful Cynthia, who didn’t seem deterred at all that they came in and ruined her chance at enjoying the party, and soon they were filled in on what all had happened while they were dining on their meals. After everyone finished eating, to no one’s surprise except Severa’s more presents were pulled out, these ones not for the child but rather for the mother, who was now accepting gifts that she hadn’t ever imagined being given by these people. “You really did make this about both of us,” she said, her eyes scanning across everyone as they brimmed with tears. “I can’t actually believe this. I couldn’t ask for anything better than what you all have done for me.”

“You’re only sayin’ that because they bought ya things you’ve been dreamin’ of for a long time.” Brady rested his head on her shoulder, sighing as he did. “I’m so glad they were okay with doin’ all this for ya. Didn’t think this would get to be this big of a deal.”

“Like I said initially, we have to honor both mother and child.” Maribelle put on a large smile as Severa’s eyes passed over her again. “While I did spent much more on my granddaughter than her mother, I made sure that what I did buy for the mother was something useful and desired.” She was making reference to a rather large scented candle set, which was something Severa had been longing for. “We’ve got to thank Brady for telling us things that Severa would want, don’t we?”

Almost everyone was in agreement, the lone dissenter being Lucina, who claimed that she had decided on her own gift for her friend without any outside influence. It was enough to cause Severa to push Brady’s head off her shoulder and nearly knock him out of his chair with the force she used. “You’re so dead later,” she said to him. “First you tell your sister and her boyfriend about some personal details, then you tell everyone about things I need.”

“They asked for it, promise. Didn’t share a word that wasn’t asked about first.” He beamed at her, getting her to drop the offended act to smile back. “There we go. That’s the Sev I like seein’ look back at me.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt you two and your adorableness, but I think it should be time for dessert.” Noire was standing up from her seat, her eyes focused over on the cake table. “And that means that we need Severa to see what I made her before we destroy it.” Naturally, Owain was first to agree with the suggestion, jumping up to state his approval, and everyone else followed, taking to their feet as well.

Severa was last to stand, unsure of why she had to do it, despite being urged by everyone to go look at the treats, but once she was standing in front of the table, staring at the image of herself on the cake, she knew exactly why. Her face was lighting up as she looked around for where Noire was, and once she found the purple-haired woman she let out a hesitant laugh. “That’s, uh, a lovely picture of me you put on there. Couldn’t you have, oh, I don’t know, picked one where I don’t look so much like a fat cow?”

The rebuttals to the harsh comment flew faster than she had expected they would, but Noire tried to speak over all of them to justify her choice of picture. “I just thought it was a nice picture of you, and you look so happy to be having your baby inside of you, and…” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her feet, before remembering the cookies and grabbing one, shoving it towards Severa. “Look at this instead! A Lunabel cookie!” Laughter filled the air as Severa did look at the cookie, admiring the artwork and the visual representation of her child’s name, before grabbing it and eating it without a second thought.  
Heading home that afternoon was an entertaining experience. As the party dispersed, several different cars had to take all the gifts over to the apartment, but Severa couldn’t go with to help because she was still technically having to work. She and Cynthia had to clean up the room, taking down all the extra decorations and rearranging the tables back to normal, discussing everything that had happened while they did. Once that was done, the manager chose not to make them keep working and instead let them loose for the afternoon, a decent idea as they had both made quite a bit of money off the party, even after splitting it. Rather than making her friend walk home like she was used to doing, Cynthia offered Severa a ride, which she immediately accepted, and for the few minutes’ drive they had together, they just kept talking about the party and how great it had been in the end.

When Cynthia pulled up to the apartment complex, Severa noticed first that no one was lingering around from what she could tell, but then she saw something she didn’t expect: her father’s car, the one she’d returned to him upon his release from jail, was sitting in her parking spot. “Gods, really? This too?” she asked, opening her door and unbuckling herself to get out. Cynthia laughed, acting innocent by saying she had no idea that was a thing as well, but it was clear by her behavior that she had known.

The front door to the car that she could assume was now hers was unlocked, so Severa opened it and looked inside, finding nothing out of the ordinary. But things were beginning to not add up, starting with how Cordelia had said she hadn’t gotten anything for the party, so she opened the trunk and went to investigate inside it. The scream she let out when she saw the wrapped boxes in the back was certainly loud enough to wake the dead, but it wasn’t loud enough to summon the person in the apartment not that far from where she was standing. If she could have ran to get Brady, she would have, but as running wasn’t one of those things she was exactly capable of, she had to settle with walking as fast as she could into the place she called home—to find her husband standing there, surrounded by all the other gifts from the party, putting together what looked like a miniature crib. “W-what are you doing?” she asked, slightly out of breath from her excitement.

“Puttin’ together one of the gifts we got. Why do ya look like ya just saw somethin’ shocking?” He set down what he was building and let Severa lead him outside, where he first saw the car and seemed not surprised at all, followed by her showing him what was in the back. “Okay, knew your mom said she was givin’ us the car because we needed it, but she didn’t mention anythin’ about more gifts.” Together they brought the boxes in, although it was mostly him doing the carrying while she supervised, and once they were inside they opened them.

“I don’t know how we got so lucky,” she ended up saying after they were all opened. “Never thought my mother would spoil us like this. Your mother, sure, but mine? She hates me most of the time, yet she just gave us a car and more baby clothes and even a little swing and…wow.” She took a deep breath, trying to collect herself. “Everyone today seriously just bought us almost everything we need. Which reminds me,” she pointed towards what he’d been building, “where did that crib thing over there come from?”

“Cynthia’s actual gift to us. Didn’t want to spoil the surprise for ya, so she kept it secret. Her parents got us somethin’ too, actually.” He pointed at another box she didn’t remember having opened. “It’s a playpen, I guess? Never thought we’d need a small crib and a big one and a playpen for a kid, but here we are.”

“Wait a second, did you say a big one? Like, a big crib?” Her eyes went wide as she thought about everything that had happened at the party, the memory of the three latecomers standing out to her. Hadn’t one of them been holding something that he then threw…? “Brady, you tell me right now that your uncle didn’t come over here and _build_ us a crib. Tell me!” He stayed silent, and she gasped. “That’s crazy! How did this happen? How did everyone decide to be nice to us like this?”

His silence lingered long enough for her to go into their bedroom and see the hand-built crib that definitely hadn’t been there when she went to work earlier. When she came back, tears in her eyes, he finally found it inside of him to speak. “That’s not all my uncle did for us today, actually. He offered me a job at his shop, workin’ on cars and all that, and, uh, him and Owain wouldn’t leave me alone until I accepted it.” She gasped again, putting her hands over her mouth from the shock. “So looks like I’m finally goin’ to be workin’ hard to provide for my family.”


	5. Growing Up

Every time Brady had ever been to the car repair shop his uncle ran, it had been for some reason not involving cars in any way; when he was much younger, his parents would drop him off there for hours while they were busy so that he could be watched by his never-really-working uncle, and as he got older he chose to come by on his own, normally to spend time with Owain. But this time, as he opened the door to the shop and the doorbell rang, his appearance in the place felt incredibly different. No longer was he there to get his cousin. For the first time in his life, he was going somewhere to actually work and be paid for it, and the fact that he was honestly making that move was terrifying.

He was so wrapped up in his realization that he didn’t even notice Owain coming out of the back office, excited to see his cousin taking up the offer of the job. “Hey there, Brady!” he greeted, cupping his mouth to make his voice boom. Brady jumped backwards at the sound, hitting the door with a loud thud. “What, skittish already? You haven’t even done anything!”

“Ya scared me, that’s all! Don’t tell me this job’s goin’ to be anything like hangin’ around you, or else I might just walk out now and call it done!” Collecting himself, Brady saw how Owain shook his head at his threat, leading him to sigh, shoulders falling in defeat. “Yeah, I know, can’t exactly go without workin’ here. Sev would kill me if I went home without the job I told her I got.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t killed you already, honestly. I mean, I’m no expert on having kids, but I can’t imagine that her current physical condition is any fun to be working in, especially as much as she claims to work.” His intention hadn’t been to make his cousin upset, but when he saw how Brady’s face fell at mention of Severa’s heavy workload, Owain went to apologize, but was interrupted by his father coming out of the office as well, seeing who had joined them.

While it took cupping his mouth for Owain to get really loud, Vaike was completely capable of it with no assistance, a skill he used often. “If it ain’t Brady! Welcome to your new home away from home!” he announced, shutting the office door behind him. “Glad t’see that you do have some sense ‘bout you, comin’ to work for me!” The way he sounded so gleeful, like he was actually proud that his nephew was there, filled Brady with a bit of comfort, although he was slightly offended that he’d been thought to have no sense. There wasn’t any time to argue that, though, as Vaike was already moving on to important business matters, breaking into an explanation of what the job entailed, Owain cutting in with his own input every few sentences or so.

By the time they were done, Brady wasn’t sure what he was supposed to really think about this job that he’d basically been given with no qualifications, because it seemed like he wasn’t going to be asked to do much, yet he’d be paid anyway. “Let me get this straight, I come here, I do some paperwork, then I sit around until I’m needed?” Vaike nodded, finding it amusing that such a simple concept required clarification. “And I get paid for this sittin’ around, even if the shop isn’t makin’ money?” Another nod, coupled with some laughter from Owain. “Sounds easy enough to me. How long every day am I doin’ this?”

“What time does the sign say we open?” Vaike asked, pointing at the sign on the door behind Brady. The blue-haired man turned and looked at the sign, reading off the nine o’clock opening time for the shop. “Okay, and when does it say we close?”

“It says six…oh, don’t tell me I’m goin’ to be here all that time every day!” Turning back to face his uncle, he was reassured a bit when he saw Vaike trying his hardest not to burst out laughing. “What’s so funny? I don’t want to be workin’ all day, five days of the week!”’

“The only one ‘round here workin’ that much is me,” his uncle corrected, finally giving in to laughing a bit. “Have you ever had a day where Owain wasn’t available for at least half of it? He works just as much as you’re ‘bout t’be, and it honestly ain’t all that much. Just come in when I tell ya to, then leave when it’s time to get outta here. Easy as that.”

Brady looked from his uncle over to his cousin, who was nodding vigorously. “He’s right. I work a few hours each day, but it’s enough to get me the money I need. Besides, maybe you’ll find that you want to work more, especially since you can now escape to this place.” Initially going to argue with that (as who would ever willingly work more to escape their life?), Brady chose not to when he realized that Owain was actually speaking the truth. He could just come work more rather than hiding somewhere to play games, and that way, Severa couldn’t come after him because he’d be doing something productive. Sure, that plan would only work during the week when the shop was open, but he already had a place to disappear off to on weekends thanks to the church, so this covered what time had always been spent being a slacker.

“I think I might really like it here,” he eventually said, much to the excitement of the two blond men. “Thanks for givin’ me this opportunity, Uncle Vaike, and thanks for insistin’ I do it, Owain.” He did feel some regret, being enthused about this job simply because it was giving him a way to get away from his wife, but he figured that the thrill of actually working would eventually surpass that reasoning. After all, his uncle had been doing this for as long as he could remember, and Owain had been working with him since he was old enough to. They clearly loved the work they did, so maybe he would too, someday.

If that was going to ever happen, it was going to take a real miracle, he quickly learned. The type of work he was expected to do was very dirty and hands-on, having to clean car parts and make them shine like new, on top of various little tasks that he was assigned at random. By the end of the first shift, his fingers were coated in grease and oil; by the end of the first week, he felt his hands would never get properly clean again. Severa found it quite hilarious when he’d come home complaining about the griminess of the job and how little fun it was, because she’d been working in an arguably worse place for years and hadn’t ever whined as much as he did. She’d also casually remind him every night that soon, very soon, he would just have to such it up and keep working, because he’d would be the sole provider for their little family, if even only for a short time, as she wasn’t staying out of work a day longer than absolutely necessary.

The reminder that he was doing this for her and for their daughter was enough to get him to drag himself out of bed and go to work every day. There was something about the fact that he wasn’t doing this for himself that was inspiring, and he told himself every time he walked into the shop that the money he was making was being put towards keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table for him and Severa. In all honesty, once he got past the stains that were ingraining themselves into his hands, the job wasn’t that bad and it was easy to want to work harder to achieve his goal of making that money. It was just moving past the stains that was the hard part.

“You’re a lot like your mother, y’know,” Vaike said to him one day while they were both in the shop’s garage, cleaning parts. “Super into bein’ clean and proper and that sorta thing. Never thought a guy who looks like you could be into such a thing, but hey, the Vaike can be wrong sometimes, can’t he?”

“I don’t see how bein’ like Ma is exactly a bad thing, not when it’s about how she likes things bein’ clean.” Brady looked down at his hands, which were predictably grease-stained, but before he pushed this conversation off as an instance of his uncle not knowing how to interact with people, he thought to look at his hands as well. They looked permanently darkened from years of working on cars, rough and cracked all around, and as he stared at them, Brady understood why his uncle had mentioned the clean thing. “You think I’m not into the hands-on kind of jobs, don’t you?” he asked, turning his attention back to what he had been cleaning.

“Never said that in those words, but sounds ‘bout right. Must be one ‘a those high-class, upper levels of society things, ‘cause I ain’t ever wanted to be workin’ on somethin’ where my hands weren’t gonna be gettin' dirty.” Laughing, Vaike set down his part and walked over to the car that he had been working on, hitting its hood a few times. “Now this work, this ain’t what I’d always wanted to do with my life, but I had t’give up somethin’ back when I fell in love with your aunt, and it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be her.”

Now Brady was curious, moving all his attention from his work over to his uncle. “What did you want to do with your life before you met her?”

“Definitely not this, that’s for sure. Didn’t exactly had a goal in mind, just wanted to go out and have a good time, maybe get into some fights and get paid to do it. But she…” He tilted his head back and sighed. “She was this good girl from a good family and she couldn’t be seen hangin’ around some fool who liked breakin’ laws. Gave up every desire I had just t’be with her, and what’d ol’ Vaike get out of the deal? A car shop.”

“But you act like you love workin’ here. Uncle Vaike, do you just pretend you love this place so that she’s happy?” Brady watched as his uncle shook his head, muttering something under his breath and hitting the car a few more times. “I don’t think pretendin’ is the way to go, especially not since Aunt Lissa would understand if—“

“She wouldn’t understand a thing. She’s been runnin’ this place since we started it, finishin’ papers, findin’ money, that sort of stuff. The easy work. Ain’t never spent a day actually gettin' her hands dirty in her life.” He hit the car one last time, before coming back over to by the sink, where he grabbed his part and started washing it again. “Liked it more when my hands were gettin' dirty from other guys’ blood, not from car grease, but sometimes you’ve gotta make sacrifices for everyone.”

Nodding, Brady took another look at his uncle’s hands, noticing the scars along his knuckles and how faded they seemed to be. “I think I get it now. The dirt on your hands means a lot more than just work. It means sacrifice, and givin’ up dreams, and that kind of stuff, yeah?”

“It means all that, oh yeah. Dirtier your hands, more you’ve given up to get t’where you are. Dare y’to go look at your mom’s hands sometime, see what little sacrifices she’s made in life. Her, your dad, my wife…all of them ain’t done anythin’ in the way of givin’ up to get things.” Vaike stopped talking and listened to see if he could hear the other person who should have been present, but when he heard nothing he continued. “Owain, that boy, he likes t’act like he works hard, but he doesn’t. He’s grown up more like his mom, which ain’t exactly a bad thing.”

They stopped talking soon after, when Owain did come barreling in, bringing with him some paperwork that needed to be filled out. It was while they were all sitting around, signing names and writing descriptions of services, that Brady took a look at his cousin’s hands and saw that they looked to be fairly clean, especially compared to his own. How was that possible, with Owain having worked there so much longer than him? There wasn’t actual truth in what he’d been told, was there?

It wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on, so he pushed it aside and tried forgetting about it, but it lingered within him. Over the next several days, he found himself talking to his uncle more and more about the idea that dirty hands meant sacrifices, and every night when he’d come home he’d keep thinking about it, about how he was from a family of desk jobs and clean hands, while he didn’t fit that mold. But when he finally approached the topic with Severa, she pushed it off as nothing more than his uncle being crazy.

Yet when he looked at her hands, he saw many scars from hot plates or stray knives or other workplace injuries. “Sev, you’ve sacrificed a lot to get where you are, haven’t ya?” he asked her, taking a firm hold of one of her hands. “Long hours, extra shifts, all that, just to live on your own and be free? Wouldn’t ya consider that gettin' your hands dirty?”

“I would consider it, if it wasn’t the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Your uncle just really wants you to like your job and be happy with it, so he’s stringing you together some huge lies that you’re just gobbling up.” She tugged her hand away from his grasp, running it through her hair once she could. “You know that both of our parents have made sacrifices to get where they are. I mean, my mom—oh.” Her face fell when she realized that maybe there was some truth to the topic, but she refused to let Brady keep believing in it. “It’s just stupid. Just because your uncle doesn’t know how to do anything but work on cars doesn’t mean he’s sacrificed more than my parents or your parents.”

He didn’t want to fight with her, so he let the topic drop and vowed to himself never to bring it up again at home, despite how much he wanted to believe in it. He always had a different way to know about the sacrifices Severa had made in life, one that didn’t involve the state of her hands; he could just look at her, with her tired expressions and swollen stomach, and know that she’d sacrificed so much for this child they were having. It wasn’t something he would exactly say to her, however, so he kept the thoughts silent.

There was another reminder to sacrifices she’d made in life, one that he hated potentially dwelling on, but when he came home from work one night and found her sitting on their bed, eyes red from crying and cheeks stained with tears, he had to assume the worst. “Did ya have another fight with your mom?” His question earned him a death glare and a firm headshake, which made him feel a bit better on the inside. “Then what’s wrong, Sev? Don’t exactly like comin’ home to see you crying like this.”

Her bottom lip trembled as she tried to find the words to explain what was going on. “M-my mother did call today,” she managed to get out, before having to take a few deep breaths to calm herself, “and she s-said that my father’s in jail again. Again!” Her voice cracked on the repeated word. “I thought he could do it. I really did. B-but my stupid mother had to arrest him for something dumb and now he’s in jail!”

“What? When’s he going to get out?” Sitting on the bed next to her, he wrapped an arm around her and hugged her tightly. “He’s got to be out in a week or two, right?”

“You’re an idiot, Brady. Your mom’s even part of the city’s law system and you don’t know how jail time works. He won’t even have a trial before next month, and they always set his bail so high that no one can get him out.” She sniffled a few times, tears still streaming freely. “He wanted to be there for us and for Lunabel, and he’s not going to be! All because of my damn mother!” She dissolved back into heavy crying at that, unable to speak any more, and while she cried there on the bed in his arms, he was reminded that she may not always show it, but she made the biggest sacrifices in the world when it came to trying to maintain relationships with her parents.

He vowed to himself that he would never force such a hard life on his daughter.

* * *

Due to nearly everyone having to go to work on Brady’s actual birthday, Maribelle suggested that they all get together the day before to have lunch. She promised that it would be a very small, intimate gathering at her house, no big party or celebration like there had been for Severa’s birthday, and because she sounded genuine enough when saying it, Brady and Severa accepted the offer. In typical Maribelle fashion, though, she forgot to mention that the lunch was going to happen right after church services let out that morning, which meant that everyone attending the lunch had to go to church as well.

This, naturally, deterred almost everyone from going, and would have made it so that it was just Brady and his parents having lunch, had he not forced Severa to come as well. “The only time I’ve ever stepped in that damn church you go to was for your birthday last year,” she grumbled, as she got herself ready for the day. “I don’t do the organized religion thing.”

“I don’t either, honestly. I just go because I’ve been doin’ it my whole life and I play violin for them. Only reasons.” She shot him a dirty look and he smiled back at her. “You’re only comin’ so that Ma doesn’t freak out on me for not bringin’ ya to my birthday lunch. I’m not expectin’ ya to listen to a word that’s said there today. Just, uh, watch me play, will ya? You’ve never actually seen that before.”

Severa went to argue that she had, but when she realized that she, in fact, never had seen him play his violin that he was apparently so great at, she gave in and reluctantly went to the church for the late-morning service. She ended up sitting next to Chrom, who looked even less enthused to be there than she did, and they spent most of the time talking about various things, getting to know each other a bit better. By the end of the service, she had a little more respect for the mayor as a person, even being able to classify him as Brady’s dad first, the guy her mother not-so-secretly wanted second. They had stopped talking long enough to watch when both Maribelle and Brady were up front, playing their violins in perfect harmony with one another, which was enough to make her understand why he had always insisted that his playing was a good reason for him to not have to work.

Even still, with work taking up time he used to spend practicing, he was fantastic at what he did, something she made sure to tell him. “You never mentioned how great you were at that,” she said, nudging him in the ribs a bit when she got the chance. “Like, actual chills down my spine from listening to what you guys did up there. How’d I end up marrying a musical genius?”

“Aw, thanks, but I’m not that great. Ma did most of the work on that performance.” He was blushing, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “I just go up there and terrify everyone into enjoyin’ the show we put on.”

“Well I happened to think you were the best part.” They locked eyes for a moment, before he leaned in to kiss her, but the gesture was interrupted by Maribelle sticking her hand between them. “Hey, what gives? Not cool!” Severa threatened to lick the hand blocking her from kissing her husband, but the hand did not move even when she stuck her tongue out and moved it closer and closer to it, the metal bauble piercing it almost grazing the skin before she gave up.

“As much as I can appreciate that you two are together, I would rather not see the displays of affection like that. Those should be private matters.” That opinion didn’t stop Maribelle from kissing Chrom literally moments later, much to the disgust of the other two, although they didn’t argue with her about it. She was, after all, providing them with lunch, and they didn’t want her to change her mind on that offer. However, even with food hanging over their heads, they flat-out ignored what she had said and kissed anyway when she had her back turned, so that she couldn’t say she’d seen it.

Once they were back at the sprawling house that the parents called home, Maribelle revealed that she hadn’t so much as started getting lunch ready and that it would take her some time to get everything set up. It didn’t come as any sort of a surprise, but it was still not something that the young couple wanted to hear. “Why don’t we all help you prepare, then?” Chrom suggested, looking between everyone to see that no one was particularly thrilled with that idea. “Or we can leave Maribelle to it and do something else, I guess.”

“I would love to have Severa assist me, if I may.” A serious expression on her face, Maribelle looked straight at Severa as she spoke, and the orange-haired woman swallowed down hard, not liking the look she was being given. “It would give us a chance to really get to know one another, something that I am well aware she’s already gotten to do with someone else who is currently here today.”

Chrom hesitated for a second, before sighing in defeat at her knowing what he had done during the church service. “You’re right, she did do that already. You ladies can handle the food preparation, while Brady and I will do…something, I guess.”

“Don’t I get a say in what I do here?” Severa asked, her voice snappish, but she knew that she didn’t have much of a choice at all, especially not when Maribelle motioned for her to follow her into the kitchen, leaving the men behind. Once they were alone in the large kitchen, she opened her mouth and let the thoughts spill out: “Oh great, now you’re going to yell at me or something, aren’t you? Maybe you’re going to tell me you’ve changed your mind and that you hate me. Go on, let me know how unfit of a wife for your son I am. I’m ready.”

“I truly believe you’re the best wife that my darling Brady could have found for himself.” It wasn’t the answer Severa had been expecting, so the insult she was going to fling caught in her throat without ever being unleashed. “I wanted to let you know that. You’ve proven how much you matter to him, how important you being in his life has been, and I cannot believe I was once so foolish to not see it.” Eyes shining, Maribelle grabbed both of Severa’s hands and squeezed them tightly, much to her confusion. “I should have known from the start that he wouldn’t simply marry someone he didn’t know, that he would find a woman worth his time to keep close guard of his heart.”

“Can you, uh, cut the theatrics? I don’t exactly get why you’re being so—“ She abruptly stopped speaking when Maribelle bent down and began tapping ever so gently on her stomach. “—that would explain it. You’re not being nice to me for _me_ , you’re doing it for your granddaughter. Understood, loud and clear.”

“No, I’m doing this for you both. She may be an important deciding factor, certainly, but you matter just as much, if not more.” Continuing with the tapping, Maribelle gave a soft sigh before standing back up, keeping her hands on Severa’s stomach as she did. “I simply cannot wait to meet this little one. Any day now, correct?”

Severa nodded while frowning a little at how her mother-in-law was still touching all over her without her express permission. “Yeah, that’s what they’ve been telling me. I honestly wish that day would be today, but whatever. I’ll suffer through keeping her in there as long as she wants to be, I guess.”

“You most definitely do not want to force things, but I can understand why you would want to. The last few days of being pregnant are simply the worst, and I can’t say that I would have ever wanted to willingly experience that.” She paused, pulling her hands back, before raising two fingers. “Minus the two times I did go through it, to have the children I love so very much!”

“Something tells me you’re not being very honest there, but okay.” Severa took note of how Maribelle looked like she was lying, and to call her out and see her become visibly flustered was something beautiful. “Come on, we’re already having this great heart-to-heart here, can’t you just tell me how bad it was and how they weren’t worth it?”

“They absolutely were worth it!” Her voice raising to a high pitch, Maribelle turned away in a huff, trying to move on to something else, but Severa was there to call her out on her lie once more, mentioning how she wouldn’t be acting like that if she meant her words. “You wouldn’t understand if I explained it, so let’s just leave it at my children were the greatest blessing the gods could have bestowed upon me, and that’s that.”

She was going to leave it there as requested, but memories of the time that they had almost gotten into a fist fight outside the house came back to Severa, and she had to follow up with a question that stemmed from that day. “It’s because you were so young, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice soft and steady. “It’s because you weren’t ready to have kids. That’s why you don’t think they were worth it.”

When Maribelle turned back to face her, she saw the tear-filled eyes and the small nod she got in return. “Yes, yes, that’s exactly it. I doubt you can even imagine what it would be like to be eighteen and unmarried, finding out that there’s a chance that you might be having your boyfriend’s child.” She blinked, a few tears dripping down her cheeks, which were rosy and bright. “Then to find out that you are, and that in order to keep from getting disowned you have to marry you boyfriend without either of you even being ready for that sort of commitment…it makes it hard to consider a child, no matter how much you ended up loving her, worth it.”

“But you ended up marrying the guy you loved and having two of his kids. Doesn’t that make it worth it in the end?” When she saw Maribelle biting her lip, trying to think of a proper response, Severa’s eyes went wide and she said, “You still don’t think they’re worth it. All these years and you don’t find them worth your time and love. That’s surprising.”

“I was so young and foolish when I had them, but I grew to love them like I had wanted them all along. I think, honestly, Lucina’s always known that she wasn’t meant to exist when she did, and I've always had such a hard time connecting with her because of that.” Maribelle took a deep breath in, trying to calm her tears. “As for Brady, we still weren’t ready when we had him, but we were in a better place, and we were more open to loving him with our whole hearts. He’s always meant the world to me, even if I haven’t always shown it. Even if I was so stupid as to push him away and then force him—and you—into the current situation.”

“You just thought you were doing what was right, which, honestly, you weren’t, but it’s whatever because everything’s worked out in the end.” Severa stood there, staring at Maribelle as she finished crying, before she opened her arms up for a hug; she was pleasantly surprised when the older woman denied the offer with a firm headshake. “What, don’t want to hug me, even though you’ve just been crying because of me? Lame.”

“It’s nothing to do with you, trust me. I know myself well enough to know that hugging you will just bring about more tears, and strong women don’t need to spend the whole day crying their eyes out.” A few deep breaths later, and Maribelle seemed to have calmed down for the most part, cracking a shaky smile at Severa. “What we discussed here stays between us, okay? His whole life, Brady’s been told that he was planned down to the moment of his birth, and I would hate for him to think otherwise.”

Severa mimed zipping her lips shut. “Secret’s safe with me. In fact, I’ll share something with you that my parents _think_ I don’t know about my existence. Did you know that—“

“You were conceived in one of the cells out at the jail? That’s a story that’s been passed around everyone in the justice system since it happened. Stern officer Cordelia and her little prisoner love interest turned loose in a cell one night, and you were the result.” As Severa’s jaw dropped at what she heard, not expecting it in the slightest, Maribelle winked a teary eye at her. “At least, so the story goes. No one’s really sure if it’s true or not. Those cells are watched pretty closely, although a young officer like your mother was at the time may have been able to pull some strings.”

“You’re kidding me,” Severa eventually said, taking a step or two back in shock. “I can’t believe that other people actually have heard about that story. My dad must be famous out at the jail for what he’s done. Or, uh, who he’s done? Ew, that is so gross to think about!” She put both hands to the sides of her head and shook it a few times. “The last thing I ever wanted to imagine was my parents actually having sex!”

Maribelle shrugged, letting out a small laugh as she did. “And the last thing I ever wanted to imagine was my son having sex, but the definitive proof that happened is right before me, so we’ll let it all slide, shall we?” They looked at each other, one in shock and the other overcoming her bout of crying, before they nodded simultaneously and moved on to other topics, such as what they were actually going to make for lunch. As they were gathered there for Brady’s birthday, they decided on making something he would enjoy, working together to set everything up for what Maribelle considered one of her secret family recipes. It was as simple as putting a few spices and vegetables into a pot and adding water, but she thought it was pretty special so Severa didn’t question it.

What she did question, though, was the way that Maribelle seemed to be making sure she was paying absolute attention to everything she did. Whether it was cutting something, or adding just a pinch of spice to the stew they were making, the blonde had to ensure that Severa was watching her every motion. “Do you want me to learn this or something?” she ended up asking, once the meal was set to a boil and Maribelle had moved on to setting up things for a side dish. “Because let me tell you, I am so not paying close enough attention to remember half the things you just did.”

“It would be nice if you learned how to make this, yes. I can assume that Brady would never cook it for you, because he has a bit of an issue with slicing vegetables, but it is one of his favorite meals in the world and…” Her voice trailed off, and she set down the knife she was holding to look over at Severa, who was staring at her with a somewhat lost expression. “Is everything okay? Do you need to sit down? Goodness, I was so wrapped up in us bonding over cooking that it completely slipped my mind that someone as close to giving birth as you should not be on her feet this long.”

“I’m fine, really, I just got to thinking about something and forgot what I was supposed to be watching.” The lost expression on her face faded, only to be replaced by her scrunching her nose and squinting her eyes. “And the fact that I guess I’m having those dumb false contractions again doesn’t make things any better!” She sighed heavily as the pain subsided, looking around for something. “Maybe sitting down would be best. I’d still like to watch you cook though, if that’s possible.”

“It certainly is. Here, let me grab you a chair.” Maribelle left the kitchen for a second, coming back with a chair being dragged behind her, which she turned and let Severa sit in before going back to her preparation work. “Now, where was I? Making some homemade sides for our lunch, correct?” She got a nod in response and the cooking continued, Maribelle explaining what she was doing to Severa, who was still only half-paying attention to what she was being told. The lack of attention was only made worse when the men entered the kitchen, bringing with them a whole host of distractions that mostly included them both asking when lunch would be ready, over and over again.

By the time the hour or so it took for everything to be cooked had passed, Severa could have sworn she’d felt quite a few of those contractions, although she wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what the pain she was experiencing was. It was, after all, quite a bit after lunch time and she could have just been feeling pangs of hunger, so she didn’t dare mention anything to anyone in case they started freaking out on her—it wasn’t a big deal and she didn’t want it to be seen as one. She’d been going through this sort of thing for over a month and it was just something that happened. But she was so busy trying to assure herself that nothing was wrong that she was once again not paying attention to things around her. “Sev, for the last time, do ya want me to move ya over to the table, or can ya manage to do that yourself?”

She was startled by Brady’s voice and must have given some sort of violent reaction to being snapped back to reality by his voice, as evidenced by the way he looked concerned. “I can move myself, thanks,” she assured him, standing up but having to take a deep breath to counteract the pain she was feeling in her back that became more prominent while on her feet. “If you can grab the chair for me, I’d appreciate that.” He did as she said, earning a smile from her as she walked behind him. “Thanks so much, B.”

“No problem, Sev. Just doin’ what I can to help out.” He set the chair down at the table where it belonged and she sat down in it once more, sighing in relief as she did. She hadn’t noticed before how uncomfortable she was while standing, although she wasn’t entirely sure if that was a new development or not. When he sat down next to her, the first thing he did was reach over to her and put a comforting hand on the top of her stomach. “I still can’t believe we’re this close to bein’ parents,” he said, running his hand over the (admittedly rather large) curve before her. “Do ya think she’ll like havin’ the same birth week as her dad? I think that’ll be kind of cool, to get to celebrate our birthdays together and all that.”

“Don’t celebrate them together unless they’re almost the same day.” Maribelle’s input was unexpected but understandable, because she had to have a say in everything. But then she continued, explaining why she had such an opinion. “Lucina’s birthday is six days after mine, and I couldn’t ever fathom sharing a celebration with her, despite how unnecessary it may have been to plan two celebrations within the same week.”

“But celebratin’ together would just be easier, Ma, especially since we don’t need to go all-out for birthdays like you like doin’.” Brady looked across the table at his mother, whose straight-lipped expression showed that she did not approve of his blatant disrespect of what she had just said. “Okay, okay, no celebratin’ together unless our birthdays are close enough for it. Got it.”

Chrom coughed, clearing his throat to speak. “You don’t have to let your mother make the decisions for you anymore, Brady. You’re plenty old enough, and mature enough, to decide things on your own. Let her get a little angry if she needs to, it’s good for her.”

“Excuse me, but I think it’s fine that he still enjoys taking his mother’s opinion into account from time to time, particularly in regards to child-raising,” she retorted, narrowing her eyes into a gaze at her husband, who raised his hands before him to tell her to back off. “Where even would he be right now if it weren’t for me?”

The answer she was looking for was most likely along the lines of “not existing”, but Severa couldn’t help but think about the current situation and how it was completely Maribelle’s fault that it was happening. “He wouldn’t be days from having a kid, that’s for sure,” she replied, a snarky tone to her voice. Maribelle looked shocked to hear those words be said, and she dropped her glare to just stare slack-jawed at Severa. “What, we’ve gone over that before, right? You’re the reason we’re stuck going through this. It’s all your fault.”

“And here I thought that we had let that become water under the bridge. Are you really going to hold that over my head, that my intervention may or may not have directly led to your little blessing?” Collecting herself enough to speak, Maribelle still had a shocked looked about her. “I am honestly stunned at this behavior, Severa. What happened to the kindness we were just showing one another?”

“I’m not saying that it being your fault is a bad thing. Gods, it’s like you completely forgot that you’d asked a question that I totally answered right there.” She sharply inhaled, another small contraction taking up her focus for a few moments; when the pain subsided as quickly as it came on, she clenched a fist tightly and banged it on the edge of the table, having forgotten what she was saying before she was distracted.

“Uh, Sev, you feelin’ okay?” Brady asked her, retracting his hand from where it rested to set it instead on her shoulder. “Ya kind of just started lookin’ like somethin’ is wrong, and that’s a bit worryin’, if you ask me.”

She resisted the desire to tell him what was really happening, forcing herself to nod and smile at him with gritted teeth. “Yeah, no, everything’s perfect. Never been better. Let’s just ignore me and get back to eating and having rousing family discussions.”

“As much as it’s obvious that she’s lying, I think she’s right in that we should resume eating. The last thing we need is for this delicious food to go cold because we forgot to eat it.” Chrom laughed, looking at Maribelle, whose face was still in an expression of shock. “See, look, Maribelle’s already surprised we’ve put off eating this long.” He laughed again, more forced than the first time. “Isn’t that right, my love?”

“Typically I would say it is, but I would be lying as well.” Pushing herself back from the table, Maribelle stood and marched around the table to Severa’s side, kneeling down beside her and getting very close up to her face, causing Severa to sink back in her chair a bit. “I think this one here should have to confess to the lies she just told before we continue on with this meal. I cannot eat in good conscience, knowing that she’s simply suffering over here where she sits.”

The fake smile still plastered on her face, Severa rapidly shook her head, hoping Maribelle would take a hint and back off. But when the blonde woman refused to move until something was said, she knew that she had lost. “I’m not suffering, okay? I’m just possibly, slightly, maybe starting to have contractions that are actually real—“ this news was met with three distinct gasps, the one most noticeable to her ear being Brady’s, and she looked to him through her peripheral vision to see that he had gone ghostly pale at the revelation, “—but it’s _okay_ because I read those books Lucina and Laurent shoved at me. I know this just means that it’s almost time but not quite. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about, sure, until you remove yourself from the situation at hand so much that you very nearly end up delivering a child in the backseat of a vehicle.” Standing up, Maribelle grabbed one of Severa’s arms and tried to drag her to her feet, which she resisted. “Oh no, you are not sitting in my nice chair any longer, not when you have become a ticking time bomb in regards to expelling a child and all connected fluids!”

As Severa continued to resist being moved, Chrom had to push his food away and sigh. “Well, so much for trying to get some eating done,” he muttered to himself, before standing up as well and walking around to restrain Maribelle. “Leave her alone. Let her relax. We don’t need to stress her out, nor do we need for you to get so worked up that you start fighting with her. Let things happen as they’re meant to, and if it means one of your nice chairs gets ruined, that’s just how it is.”

“But I don’t want my chair to be destroyed!” Maribelle whined, trying to break out of Chrom’s grasp so she could continue attempting to get Severa up. “I want this all to go perfectly and properly, and sitting in my dining room in my house is not the perfect or proper place to give birth to a child!”

“I’m not anywhere close to giving birth, calm your damn tits.” Slightly shocked that she actually allowed herself to say that to her mother-in-law, Severa gave a thumbs-up while dropping the fake smile she’d been wearing. “If it gets worse, I’ll let you know, but we don’t need to be freaking out about this right now. It’s, like, fifteen minutes between each of these stupid contractions, and that’s a sign that there’s still a long way to go with this.”

“The second they become closer together, you better say something.” Maribelle stopped resisting how Chrom was holding her, and once Severa agreed to what she said, she felt comfortable enough to go take her seat once more. “I cannot believe this, though. Of all the days to start going through the early stages of labor, it had to be today, the day we’re all trying to celebrate someone’s birthday.”

“Maybe that’s because she wants to celebrate it too?” His voice was scratchy, like he was about to start crying at any moment, but Brady’s suggestion brought smiles to the faces of his parents, as well as a fleeting-moment grin to Severa’s. “Maybe Lunabel already loves her dad, loves _me_ , so much that she wants to be able to spend my birthday with me.”

“I doubt that’s the case, Brady, but it is a lovely thought.” Maribelle’s smile grew bigger as she looked to her son and saw how he was just staring at Severa, love and concern in his gaze. “You shouldn’t dwell on that right now, however. After some thought, I am inclined to believe in the one carrying the child and her intuition that it’s not quite time yet, so let’s try to return this birthday celebration to some normalcy, shall we?”

It was hard to do as suggested, but somehow the four found a way to get back to eating and having friendly, light-hearted conversation that tried its hardest to stay away from the topic of babies. That was an impossible feat to accomplish, especially whenever Severa would contort her face in pain and try to play off what she was going through as nothing serious, because then eyes turned to the clocks in the room to make sure that she wasn’t edging closer to when her pain was a real problem. For the duration of their afternoon at the house, things didn’t seem to progress much at all, and that was how it stayed into the early evening hours and even into the night.

Somewhere around midnight, as Brady was about to call it a night to get some sleep, he was stopped by Severa, as she sat on the couch, arms wrapped around her stomach and her eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t think we should stay here tonight,” she said to him, not even opening her eyes to look in his direction. “Something tells me that it’s not a good idea. In fact, it might be the worst idea ever. It’s not time yet, but…” She hoped her trailing off would inspire him to take action, but all he did was stare blankly at her, trying to make sense of what she had just said.

“If it’s not time, why should we go somewhere? Don’t ya want to sleep in your bed tonight?” he asked in response, taking another step towards the bedroom. “I know I want to sleep in the bed. Much comfier than anywhere else.”

“I would rather go now while we’re both awake and alert than later, when you’re dead tired and I’m screaming at you to go faster!” Her answer was snappish, as her eyes flew open to glare at him. “Brady, I’m not sure if you’re just dumb or if you’re trying to ignore me, but I’m saying I think it’s almost time, and we need to be somewhere that’s not here.”

As the understanding hit him, his eyes slowly widened, becoming roughly the size of dinner plates by the time he jumped into action, grabbing everything they’d set aside for the occasion. “We’ve got to get out of here then!” he excitedly yelled as he hurried around. “If ya think it’s almost time, then that’s that! We’re goin’ to get to meet our sweet baby soon, and that means we’ve got to get goin’!”

“It’s about time you take this seriously. I mean, I’ve only been sitting here almost in tears for an hour now.” Despite the nature of what she was talking about, she found it within her to laugh, getting herself to her feet so that they could actually leave. He was shoving things into her arms to carry while running to shut everything off and making sure that each item they wanted with them at the hospital was in their possession. When he was absolutely positive that what they needed was with them, they left the apartment, climbing into their old car and heading out on their way.

* * *

Thanks to some foresight and some careful research that had been done months in advance, they had already made arrangements at a local hospital for when this moment came. They hadn’t expected it to be the dead of night, with absolutely no one else around to impede the process of them getting checked into one of the rooms at the birthing center. It wasn’t a very big room, nor was it very homey, but it was private and quiet and right down the hall from the nursery where all the newborns were sleeping.

Walking by the big glass windows and seeing the doctors inside working tirelessly to make sure that each and every one of those babies was in perfect condition had made Brady feel like them being there was the best possible option. In some amount of time, he would have a child in there, being taken care of like all those others, and the mere thought filled him with a sense of peace that was quickly broken when they were past the windows and to the room. He would have much rather kept looking at all the babies than having to be present to watch nurses hook up all sorts of machines to Severa, who did not seem to be enjoying what was happening to her at all. Up to that point, the worst reaction she’d given to the pain she was experiencing was a scrunched-up face and a sassy comment, but she was now clearly moments away from breaking down into tears.

“I can’t do this,” she choked out after one of the contractions wracked her body. “I can’t handle this any longer. Can’t we just put an end to it, get her out, call it good?” He felt incredibly guilty that he was the reason she was suffering like that, a guilt that became even stronger when the nurse told her that they _couldn’t_ do that, and that it was going to be a long night before it was anywhere close to time to give birth. The look on Severa’s face when she heard that was a mix of pain and anger, as if she couldn’t believe what she had been told. “I’m not going through this all night. I’ll hurt someone before I have to do that.”

“Sev, don’t start a fight, please. Just listen to what the nice nurse is sayin’ and leave it at that.” Not wanting there to be an argument, Brady tried his hardest to convince her to just accept what she’d been told, but Severa was simply not having it. She shot him a death glare, before demanding that the nurse do something for her, which the nurse claimed there wasn’t much that could be done at that point in time.

To Severa, that meant that nothing was ever going to be done for her, and she spent the next little while griping to no one in particular about how the care they were giving her was absolutely terrible, because they wouldn’t give her what she wanted. Rather than listen to his wife complain about nothing, Brady decided that he was going to try and get some sleep before anything happened. His eyes closed to the sound of Severa complaining, and they reopened to the sound of her flat-out screaming his name, followed closely by someone touching his hand. It took him a few moments to reorient himself with the situation, to remember why he had fallen asleep in a chair next to a loud hospital machine that was beeping every so often. It was during that time that he saw that Severa had her back turned to him in the bed she was in, and in the middle of her back, right along her spine, was something that seemed to have been inserted in her.

“What’s goin’ on here?” he asked, yawning as he did. “Somethin’ happen to ya, Sev?”

“Oh, nothing, just a giant needle in my back to make everything stop hurting,” she replied, turning her head to try and look at him. “Let me tell you, if I _ever_ have to go through this again, I will personally make sure that you feel the same pain I was feeling. Childbirth is not fun, not even a tiny bit.”

He meekly nodded, understanding that her threat was most likely a result of her situation and not an actual thing she would do, although with her it was always hard to tell. “Wouldn’t want to put ya through this again anyway. How’s it goin’, other than the pain and everything not bein’ fun? How long have we been here?”

“Right, you fell asleep before anything happened. You sleep like a damn log, honestly. Can’t believe you missed all the excitement.” There was no denying that she was being sarcastic with what she was saying. “Remember when we got here and the stupid nurse wouldn’t give me anything? Well, she was doing that because I guess I wasn’t ‘in labor enough’ to do anything, but as soon as I was…oh man. That giant needle was a gift. Can barely feel a thing anymore, which is awesome!”

“Sounds great, actually. Glad to know they’ve done somethin’ right for ya. Now why were ya callin’ my name out? Unless I dreamed that part up, of course.” He stood up and walked around the bed to be on her other side, so that she wasn’t have to crane her neck to try and see him. When he got to actually look at her, with her pale face that was stained with tears and sweat, her long orange hair all pulled up into a single messy ponytail to keep it out of the way, he began to feel guilty again for being responsible for her being like this. “Sev, come on, tell me what’s happening here. I think I deserve to know, yeah?”

After clearly thinking about what to say, she gave a small nod. “Yeah, you do. I just got worried that you’d be asleep for so much longer, and I didn’t want to be alone in being awake. One of the doctors was just in here, and she suggested calling for you in a way to make you think something was happening, so I did just that. She helped me out by touching you, not sure if you caught that or not. Whatever woke you up, it worked and that’s what matters, I’d say.”

“How long was I sleepin’ for? Doesn’t feel like that long at all.” He knew he’d already asked about time, and based on the way she’d skirted around the question the first time, he was sure she’d do it again.

“Long enough for things to start getting interesting, but that’s all I really know. I think we got here around midnight, and the sun’s still not up, so it hasn’t been all that long.” She froze for a moment, before locking eyes with him and grinning. “Happy birthday, by the way. Not sure if this is how you wanted to spend this time, but it’s happening.”

The words after the first two were lost on him, as it sunk in that it was indeed his actual birthday. A year ago, he’d been playing dress-up in the church, hearing the first mentions of Owain’s crazy plan to get out of his house and get married, and now he was standing beside his own wife in the middle of labor, about to become a dad. It was crazy how so much had happened in so little time, and that things had worked out the way they did. “Thanks, Sev, for rememberin’ me at this time. Can’t wait until Ma calls to wish me a happy birthday and I tell her that we’re here for it.”

“You should, uh, actually get on calling her sometime soon,” Severa said, her voice lowering as she spoke. “Same with my mother. I’m not expecting them to be here when it happens, but I think they should know that their grandbaby is going to be born at pretty much any time today.”

“Any time?” Brady repeated, eyes widening at the words. Severa nodded at him, breaking into some explanation that while it wasn’t quite time, it was definitely close enough to start getting everyone informed and ready for the inevitable. “Oh gods, yeah, I should call Ma and your mom and let them know, then. Mind if I use your phone for this? Might be better if they get the call from your number but my voice.”

“You’re only saying that because your phone is still broken and still under the couch at home, but yes, you can use mine.” Shocked that she knew that was the honest reason why he was asking to use hers, he waited for an explanation for how she could possibly have known that, getting nothing in return. She just laughed and watched him fumble around looking for where she’d put her phone, and once he found it tucked away in one of the bags they’d brought with them, he made those fateful phone calls. Neither person answered so he left both of them a message explaining the situation and that their presence was allowed and would be appreciated whenever possible. “I’m not sure if appreciated is the way I would have worded that, but okay,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t actually want my mother here, but I know she’d be pissed if the offer wasn’t made to her.”

“I had to word it somehow, okay?” Sounding sort of offended at how his wording was being nitpicked, Brady put the phone back where he found it before taking to his chair once more, propping his elbow on the armrest and his chin on his hand. “Didn’t think that I’d ever need to make that kind of call. Definitely one of the weirdest experiences I can say I’ve had.”

“Oh yeah, same here. If I didn’t know that there was something actively trying to get out of my body, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that it was happening. Can’t feel a thing right now and it’s lovely.” Severa spoke as if she were trying to make him jealous, although he knew that if anything, she was jealous of him for not being in pain, period. “I am a bit scared for when this stuff wears off and I’m back to feeling every little muscle movement in there. It can’t be a very good transition.”

He tried assuring her that she wouldn’t go back to feeling things, but his words fell on deaf ears because she knew that he didn’t know what he was talking about. He ended up being partially right, as when the numbness of her lower half started fading the doctors came back and medicated her over again, but there were moments where the pain was worse than what the medicine could take away. It was in those moments where she would start yelling at him, cursing him for what he’d caused, and even his kind gesture of giving her his hand to take her aggression out on was met with disgust, slapping him away rather than accepting him.

When the moment came for her to start pushing, she decided that she did actually want to be holding his hand, but when she reached for it he happened to lean in closer to her, resulting in her hitting him in the face. If it had been any other moment, the impact might have stunned him, but he was too excited and nervous about what was happening to really realize he’d been hit. His hand ended up gripped tightly in hers, as she could very minimally notice the regular contractions she was having and could do as women in labor did and push along with them.

Maybe it was that she was trying to be gentle with him while being forceful in getting their baby out, but she didn’t squeeze his hand to the point of him crying out in pain, allowing him to keep repeating words of encouragement to her, as well as words to calm himself. He wasn’t going to cry, he wasn’t going to let this moment be marred by him losing control of his emotions and becoming a sniveling mess. At least, that’s what he had wanted, but as he kept repeating his words, he could feel himself tearing up, one time blinking his vision clear, the next it being clouded with tears. “Sev, you’ve got this,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time, his voice choking up as he spoke. “You’ve got this, and we’re goin’ to be parents, and we’re goin’ to have our little Lunabel in our arms, and—“

He was cut off by a cheer from the doctors that had assembled themselves for assisting with the birth, one of them asking for one last push, which she gave them as quickly as she could. Another cheer erupted, speckled with wishes of congratulations, as the doctors got to work on cleaning off and taking care of the small child who had just been brought into the world. If it hadn’t been for seeing them grab the blood-and-fluid covered baby and move her over to a table that had been set up in the room, neither parent would have known that she had been born—she was absolutely, completely silent. And it was this silence that terrified Severa more than anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate leaving readers on cliffhangers like this, especially when I don't know when the next chapter is going to be posted, but that's how it's going to be, sadly. My goal is to have the next (and last) chapter posted no later than the 22nd (interesting), but I'll be on vacation the entire time between now and then so who knows how well that will work out.


	6. Lunabel

“I-is she okay?” Severa asked, her voice shaky with tiredness from what she’d just endured. “Why hasn’t my little girl started screaming? Is something wrong?” Not getting any answers, and panic beginning to overtake her, she sucked in a deep breath and yelled, “Damn it, someone answer me! What’s wrong with my baby? W-what’s wrong with her?”

The doctors still didn’t answer her, but one of them did leave the table’s side with the infant in hand, bringing her over to her panicked mother’s side before laying her carefully on what was visible of Severa’s chest. The child lay still for a few tense moments, while both parents looked at her with worry and concern, until she let out a strong, piercing cry that brought them both sighs of relief. “See, nothing’s wrong,” Brady managed to choke out, hand over his mouth to try keeping himself from crying. “She just got shy or somethin’ and didn’t want to cry right away. No big deal.”

“No big deal…? She could have been dead!” Running a finger over the fine blue hair on her child’s head, Severa tried to sound calm but was clearly still panicked. “She could have been dead and everything could have been a total waste!”

“But she’s not dead, so let’s worry about that now, yeah?” Never before had Brady felt so compelled to look at someone than he did right then, staring at the small newborn curled up on her mother’s chest. “She’s perfect, Sev. Nothin’ wrong with her from what I can tell.”

“And that’s what matters.” Still stroking her head, Severa slowly worked down to running that finger over other parts of the child’s body, touching her back and hands and looking incredibly content as she did. “I can’t imagine what it would have been like if something was wrong,” she said with a soft laugh, not wanting to disturb the child with any sort of movement. “We really would have freaked out.”

He lowered his hand, now trying not to laugh while he could feel tears building up in his eyes. “Oh yeah, like ya didn’t freak out anyway,” he replied, reaching out towards the child, sticking one of his fingers in one of her tiny hands so that she could latch onto it. “Hey, I think she likes me!” He tried tugging his hand away but couldn’t bear to possibly disappoint or even upset her by moving his finger. “Perfect little Lunabel, got her hold on me already.”

“Like she should, definitely.” Severa was still checking everything about her child, making her way down one spindly leg and finding a small foot with all toes properly in place. “She’s got her hold on me too, and has for the longest—“ Her sentence stopped dead in its tracks with a loud gasp, followed by her asking, “What the hell is wrong with my baby’s foot?” All the chatter between the doctors came to a standstill as they looked over at her, where she was grabbing Lunabel’s small foot and staring at it in shock. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with her foot?” she repeated, not letting go. “It’s twisted and not bending and not right!”’

“Okay, we already said nothing was wrong with her, why do ya have to keep actin’ like something is?” Brady got up from his chair, half-expecting for Severa to just tell him to sit back down to put an end to her cruel joke, but when she looked to him with horror and mouthed her question to him once more, it slowly sank in that she wasn’t joking. As carefully as they possibly could, they turned the child just enough that he could see what she was referring to; in comparison to her other foot, Lunabel’s left foot was curved in to the inside, looking like her ankle was completely flat on its side. She didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong with it, as she was just giving small whimpers where she lay, but there was something clearly wrong, and they needed an explanation for it.

“I’ll ask one more time,” Severa started, grabbing Lunabel’s foot to try and show the gathered doctors what she was talking about, but the sudden motion was enough to get the girl to begin crying loudly. Rather than being able to force out the answer she was looking for, the new mother had to instead calm her crying baby, feelings of guilt for making her cry and anger for not knowing what was going on filling her as she did. By the time the baby was calmed once more, the doctor who had brought her over was trying to take her away for more observations, which Severa only allowed if, and only if, they told her what was wrong with the child’s foot right away.

It wasn’t guaranteed but she was told it would happen as soon as they knew, and so after being kissed farewell by both parents (one unhappy and one crying), the little baby was picked up and carried back over to the table, which was rolled out of the room. “I didn’t believe somethin’ was wrong until ya showed me it,” Brady said, covering his mouth with his hands in disbelief. “Maybe she’s just holdin’ her foot weird and it’ll fix itself on its own.”

“I know what I saw, Brady, and it wasn’t her holding it weird. There was something very, totally, undeniably wrong with her foot. I didn’t think it would happen, but it did.” Looking around at the now-empty room, before turning to see Brady taking his seat once more, Severa let out a long sigh, moving one hand to grab the tube sticking out of her arm. “And now that I’m completely done here, let’s just leave.”

“I’m not lettin’ ya do that, Sev!” He reached over and pulled her hand away, at which she huffed and turned her head away from him. “We’ve got to just stay here until you’re told to leave. Hopefully that’ll be with a perfectly fine Lunabel, but however it’s going to happen, it’s not happenin’ right now. No one’s even come to visit yet.”

“Oh, right, because I so want people coming to visit me here.” She rolled her eyes, her hand creeping back towards yanking on the tube but being stopped once more. “I’m a mess, no one wants to see me in this state, and the reason everyone would want to come is a broken child that is going to disappoint everyone when they see her!”

He had a retort catch in his throat, something he was going to say but thought better of when he heard how honest she was being with her thoughts. She truly thought that something was wrong with her child, therefore making her imperfect, and it was clearly getting to her. So rather than retorting, he calmly said, “Sev, just because somethin’ might be wrong with her doesn’t mean she’s broken. We’re still going to love her, because she’s our baby and we want her.”

“You might want her, but I want a baby that isn’t flawed.” She gave another long sigh, sitting up in the bed a bit. “I didn’t think it was possible that she wouldn’t be perfect. Never once thought about that. But for me to hold her and for her to be so not what I was expecting, it hurts. It really hurts, B. And I don’t want to deal with it.”

“So you’re sayin’ you want nothin’ to do with her?” His words were catching in his throat still, although not due to reluctance in speaking; he knew that what he had to say was plenty important, but just the idea of Severa giving up their child because of this was bringing nothing but pain to him, causing him to choke up. “Sev, I can’t let ya do that. She’s ours, not someone else’s, and it doesn’t matter if there’s one thing or a million things wrong with her, we’re takin’ care of her because she’s still perfect.”

“She’s not perfect, and that’s the problem!” Balling one hand into a fist, Severa closed her eyes and took a few quick breaths before halfheartedly swinging a punch over in Brady’s direction, missing him completely but making her point that she wasn’t going to listen to him reassure her things were fine. “We wanted a child with ten working fingers and ten working toes, not one with a foot that doesn’t seem to work at all! You can’t tell me that she’s still perfect when she’s broken like that!”

He watched as she took another swing at him, missing once again, before falling backwards in her bed, a deep scowl on her face. She didn’t say anything else, not even when he became overwhelmed with tears, crying rather than being able to speak, and so they sat there, her stewing in her anger and him bawling like a young child, for what felt like forever. The first interruption to them was a nurse coming in to check on Severa, who did her duties quickly but held no news on the child’s condition, and the second interruption was a breathless Maribelle nearly running into the room, arms filled with balloons, flowers, and gifts. She took one look between the couple, at how Severa still looked absolutely furious with the world and at how Brady was still crying, and her heart sank.

“Please, by all means, tell me that everything involving the birth went fine,” she pleaded, setting down some of her gifts on the counter. “I assumed it was so due to the little placard on the door, but based on how you two are acting…I didn’t believe that I would miss anything because of work, but I got held up by something that never ends and got here as fast as I could.”

“Everythin’ went fine, Ma.” His voice was wavering, but Brady at least had the courtesy to try and lock eyes with his mother, who was now looking more concerned by the second. “It’s just that, uh, somethin’ was a bit wrong, and now—“

“My baby was _flawed_ ,” Severa spat, her eyes still tightly closed as she continued laying in the bed. “Broken like I did something wrong to her when I didn’t.”

Her heart sank further, and Maribelle stumbled backwards a small bit, catching herself against the wall with one hand over her heart. “Oh, gods no, what was wrong with the little angel? She will live, right?”

“Ma, it wasn’t that bad,” Brady tried saying, but Severa shushed him before he could get any other words out.

“It was simply the worst! First of all, she didn’t cry until I got to hold her, which was so scary because babies are supposed to cry!” Severa opened her eyes, now glaring over at Maribelle, who was still against the wall trying to collect herself as she heard the news. “But once she was crying and okay, I was admiring how adorable she was for being something that seriously just came out from between my legs, and I got to her foot and it was hideously disfigured! Like someone just kind of took it and twisted it all wrong!”

Eyes widening, Maribelle stepped forward from the wall and placed her hands on the end of the bed, before grabbing one of Severa’s feet and twisting it to demonstrate. “You mean, something like this?” she asked, once she had the foot in as close to the position as she could. Peering over to see, Severa nodded when she saw that it was roughly what she had seen on her daughter, and the answer made Maribelle bite her lip in thought as she tried to think of how to react to this development. She let go of the foot in her hands and pulled her arms to her sides, pacing around the room in thought for a moment, before sighing and just going for the explanation. “My dear, I cannot believe no one told you that was a possibility with her. They can detect that sort of thing long before birth. Why, they did when…” She coughed, stopping herself from continuing that sentence. “My point is, they could have and should have let you know this was a possibility.”

“They might have, I don’t remember. It’s been a long day though, and I don’t care to think back on all the stupid appointments I went to where they probably didn’t bother telling me my baby wasn’t going to be perfect.” Severa rolled her eyes, before pointing at Maribelle. “Now finish what you were saying. They did when, what?”

“It was nothing, just a stray thought. You’re completely right in this being a long day, however, and I believe that means you should rest. I’ll just make myself comfortable until the time comes where they bring my precious granddaughter in here and I can meet her for the first time.” Maribelle was eyeing one of the other chairs in the room, ones further back from the bedside, and as she made her way over to one she grabbed the balloons she’d brought and carried them over with her, handing them to Brady when she was beside him. “Here, these are equal parts for you and dear Lunabel. After all, it is both of your birthdays.”

“Yeah, sure is,” he replied, looking up at the mix of generic “happy birthday” balloons as well as newborn baby ones. “Kind of really can’t believe that part of all this. Just like I can’t believe she’s actually alive, if even ‘broken’ like Sev keeps sayin’ she is.”

Maribelle stopped walking, before going straight back to in front of Brady, leaning over to kiss his forehead gently. “She’s not broken, and I’m sure soon Severa will stop saying that, when she realizes how fixable this problem is. She’s working herself up over nothing too terrible, and it’ll come to her eventually.”

“And if it doesn’t?” He looked from the balloons over to Severa, who was laying on her side the best she could be, mumbling something to herself. “Ma, I think she’s convinced this is a bad thing and that it’s the end of the world for Lunabel. Yeah, didn’t ask for this to happen, but I can’t have my wife hatin’ our baby just because something’s up with her foot!”

“A mother can never hate her child, no matter how much she acts like she does.” Kissing her son’s forehead again, Maribelle moved on to her seat in the corner, watching the couple to make sure that they didn’t get into any sort of argument over their child’s condition while she was present. They didn’t, nor did they share any words at all, which was equally worrisome to her.

The next person to come in the door was also bearing gifts, although the small bag that Cordelia held in her hands paled in comparison to everything Maribelle had brought with her. She looked at how everyone was situated, noticing that everyone was separated and not interacting with one another, and she sighed, looking back to the door as if leaving was an option. “Mother, can’t believe you actually walked in here like you’re wanted,” Severa said once she saw Cordelia standing there, which only made her want to turn around and leave before she had the chance to say anything. “What, aren’t you going to tell me how this is so stupid that you had to pull away from your super important job and your busy life to come see me?”

“Severa, darling, you know that you matter more than any sort of work could, especially in this circumstance.” Cordelia swung the bag she was holding a bit, letting it hit her legs a few times. “Besides, I felt obligated to come by when I got the message that the baby was coming, but it seems I missed the events.”

“Join the club.” Maribelle motioned towards the seat next to her for Cordelia to sit in, which the red-haired woman did after letting her eyes leave the door. “Why, I must have only been a matter of minutes too late. What a shame that the typical court proceedings for your husband had to take longer today.”

Cordelia’s face initially lit up when she heard talk of her husband, but her eyes quickly cast downward as she thought about what that meant. “Was he told? This grandchild meant so much to him, and he would have loved to have known…”

“I made sure to let him know today was the day.” Maribelle laughed, putting a hand on one of Cordelia’s legs and patting it gently. “But that was all I was able to tell him. I think the gravity of the situation, the day where his grandbaby is born being the first day of his months-long sentence, got to him.”

“Months-long?” Repeating the words to get a murmur in response, Cordelia’s face fell further. “Gods, what have I done? I should have just let him continue breaking those minor laws that no one abides, shouldn’t have arrested him for violating probation, shouldn’t have prevented him from being here today.”

“Oh lovely, looks like my mom finally feels regret for always being there to ruin my dad’s life. Too bad that it’s too late for any of that.” Severa sounded genuinely upset by what she was saying, but she was making sure to not look anywhere near her mother as she spoke. “Just like it’s too late to change that I’ve got a broken baby. We’re all screwed over.”

Her head perking up, Cordelia went to ask what was meant by talk of a “broken” baby, but Maribelle stopped her before she even got the chance, quietly explaining what she understood everything to be. The two ladies continued talking between each other for quite some time, while the married couple in the room stayed silent, especially in regards to each other. The only times Severa spoke after that were when the nurses came in to check on her, and when one of the mothers asked her a direct question; Brady never once said anything, although he could be heard crying occasionally as different realizations hit him.

“I think we’ve finally found the place!” The voice caught everyone off guard, most especially the two mothers sitting in the chairs, as Cordelia had been saying something when Maribelle groaned at the new voice. The door to the room came flying open, and a simply enormous bundle of balloons was pushed into the room, being held by one grinning Owain, who was followed by Noire, holding her fair share of goodies. “Only took way too long. Really hope that other lady isn’t offended this stuff wasn’t for her.”

“Who told you we were here?” Brady and Severa both asked simultaneously, before looking at each other with equal parts disgust and enjoyment in their faces. He quickly turned away as punishment for what had just happened, while she continued to talk. “Seriously, you two weren’t invited to come see me.”

Owain shrugged, letting go of his bundle of balloons so they floated up to the ceiling, the strings dangling down everywhere. “I figured when it was my mother calling to let my father and I know that the precious child was among us, that was my invitation to be here.” He gave a thumbs-up over at Maribelle, who sighed and rolled her eyes. “Thanks for telling my mom, Aunt Maribelle. I appreciate it!”

“Yes, well, I had figured she would keep her mouth closed and not tell anyone,” she muttered in response, looking to Severa in hopes that she would be forgiven for what she had accidentally let happen.

However, Severa was far too concentrated on glaring at Owain to pay Maribelle any mind. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to just walk on in here, uninvited, but I would have forgiven that if you hadn’t brought your psycho broad along with you!” The dagger eyes changed their intended recipient, meeting their mark with Noire’s surprised face. “That’s right, I know you were so trying to make my life terrible with all that stuff you baked me!”

“I didn’t want to make it terrible…” Noire buried her face in the stuffed animals she was carrying and gave a loud sob, which quickly was replaced with a cackle that sent shivers down the spines of everyone who hadn’t ever heard her personality switch before. “I just wanted to see the perfect little woman who couldn’t do any wrong get destroyed by her own gluttony! And while I didn’t get the results I could have hoped for, damn it was fun having you beg and plead with me to give you more and more!”

“I won’t say I didn’t beg and all that, but what are you getting at? I’m talking about how you must have included something in those sweets that caused my baby to be born broken!” Noire unburied her face, an evil grin on her face, but she had no response to what Severa had just said. In fact, no one knew how to exactly respond to that, allowing another silence to fall over everyone.

To break the quiet, Owain coughed, looking up at the balloons collected over his head, before tilting his head a bit to see the balloons Brady was holding. “I’m glad to see that someone else had the brilliant idea to brighten up this place with balloons,” he said thoughtfully. “Hospital rooms are quite boring and drab without something so lively.”

“Why is he here already?” It was yet another new voice entering the fray, but the speaker quickly pushed her way into the center of the room. “Mother, Brady, I am disappointed in you both for neglecting to let me know what was going on. I am ever-so-thankful that I have an aunt who is willing to share such news with me as she hears it, but…” Lucina looked around at everyone who was there, from Owain staring at balloons to Noire with her creepy grin, from Maribelle looking more and more shocked to Cordelia looking confused, and from Severa, who was still angry with everyone and everything, to Brady, who tried not locking eyes with his sister. “It seems that perhaps my presence here is unwanted. That might explain why I was never told anything.”

“You’re wanted here, Lucy, trust me.” Brady’s voice was barely above a whisper, as he was still trying to avoid locking eyes with her. “It’s just been a really rough day, and I didn’t think Sev would appreciate it if I used her phone to call ya and let ya know what was goin’ on after everythin’ that happened.”

“Everything that happened?” Lucina raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot as she waited for an explanation. When one didn’t come from her brother, she looked over to Severa instead. “Please, for the love of everything, tell me that all that’s happened today is you having a baby. That has to be it.”

“I could say that, sure,” Severa told her, giving a heavy sigh, “but it would be sort of a lie. That’s all I’ve done today, but that baby’s broken and not perfect and I don’t like it.”

Her eyebrows raising further, Lucina went to ask what was meant by that, but Maribelle spoke before she got a chance. “She’s not _broken_ , dear Severa. If what you’ve explained to me is correct, she has a simple and completely fixable birth defect that you’ll come to find is not that big of a deal.”

“Still means she’s broken.”

“It does not.” Almost all eyes were on Maribelle now, and she swallowed down hard, realizing that she was now expected to keep talking. “Take it from someone who has had to raise a child with such a defect. It becomes no big deal in no time at all.”

Several gasps filled the room, eyes widening in her direction, and Maribelle knew that the two people most shocked at what she had just told them were her two children. She had every intention of clearing the air and setting things straight, but one of the doctors had come into the room, rolling with him a small carrier that had a sleeping, bundled child within in. After scolding everyone for how many people were present, he pushed the carrier to the bedside, letting everyone in the room see the baby.

Lunabel’s presence, even though she was fast asleep and didn’t seem to notice that she was in such a crowded place, was enough to catch everyone’s attention, and the three young people who hadn’t already seen her flocked to be standing around the carrier. The baby was only in there for a few moments, however, as Severa picked her up and unbundled her from the blankets she was wrapped up in, disturbing her sleep and causing her to whine, but at the same time letting everyone see the “broken” foot in question. “Something about that looks awfully familiar to me,” Lucina mused, leaning in to get closer to her niece, “but I can’t exactly place my finger on what it is.”

“You know what, Lucina, I think you’re right!” The loudness of his voice enough of a shock to cause the baby to cry more, Owain moved away from being so close to her to instead look between where Brady sat and where Maribelle was, trying to get closer to see her grandchild. He stroked his chin a few times in thought, before proudly raising a finger in excitement. “I, however, think I can place my finger exactly where I’ve seen this before. If only my mother was here, she’d know the exact picture to pull out to prove my point!”

Lucina nodded, also taking a couple steps back from the baby to let someone else, in her case Cordelia, get a closer look. “The picture that she used to replace the one of the three of us getting into various trouble while completely nude, correct?”

“That’s the exact one!” Owain raised his finger a bit higher, before pointing it in Brady’s direction. “You, my most treasured cousin, do you know the image we speak of?”

“If ya give me a minute, I might.” Brady ran a few fingers through his hair, running a mental recollection of all the pictures hanging in his aunt’s house, eventually thinking of the one they were talking about. His face went blank as said image crossed his mind, and he looked to where Severa was still holding up Lunabel for everyone like an animal on display. “I…don’t think I know what you’re gettin' at by bringin’ that picture up. Didn’t your mom say that it was at a weird angle and the shadows were playin’ tricks on our baby feet?”

“She did, but she was lying.” Rather than it being Owain answering the question, it was Maribelle, as she stared almost in horror at Lunabel’s little twisted foot. “I never thought that this would happen again, especially not to my first grandbaby.” She gave a weary sigh, tilting her head back to blink away tears. “I guess that’s what I get for keeping this secret from the son of mine who suffered the same way.”

“What was that, Ma? Ya kind of got a bit choked up there and I’m not used to hearin’ ya get like that.” Based on the fact that he too was starting to cry, Brady had fully heard what Maribelle had said, but he wanted her to repeat it so that he knew she wasn’t playing around. When she said the fateful words a second time, he forced himself to nod, a painful smile upon his face. “Why’d ya never let me know about that? I don’t remember it, but I’m sure it was all when I was too little to remember and all that…”

“I didn’t want you thinking you were ever a broken child, my sweet Brady. I wanted you to think you were always perfect the way you were, never having something like this happening to you.” Maribelle’s voice was cracking, shaking with every word. “And now for your child, my grandbaby, to be afflicted by the same condition, it’s a cruel twist of fate.”

A loud sob filled the air, quickly followed by Brady nearly tackling his mother in a hug as they both broke down crying over what had just happened. “Uh, is now a bad time to come in here?” Cynthia’s loud, chipper voice asked over the sounds of two grown adults and one newborn crying. “Me and Inigo just thought we should stop by, since Owain was so kind as to let us know where you guys were, but maybe we shouldn’t be here.”

“Nonsense, my love, it’s simply an emotional time in their lives.” Inigo gave Cynthia a push towards where everyone else was in the room. “Now you go in and mingle with everyone while I go find something to supply as a gift for the occasion. Go on, have fun ogling the baby while I shop.” She tried to dig her heels into the floor, but as it was tile she just slid along until she gave up and actually walked, bidding him farewell with a wave.

“I can’t even try to be upset that you’re here, Cynthia,” Severa said, barely audible over the crying. “You’ve come in at the perfect time, too. Get a look at my broken and whining baby.” She held Lunabel up a bit higher, the little girl still screaming like she was being tortured, and after Cynthia got a few moments of looking at her, she was finally pulled in close to her mom’s chest and calmed down. “Isn’t she great? I wanted to return her but now that I know her damn defect runs in the family, maybe I’ll keep her around after all.”

“I’d sure hope you’d keep her! She seems like such a cutie!” Cupping her face in her hands, Cynthia leaned in closer to see the baby, before perking her head up and doing a present person count. “Uh, I don’t mean to sound like a drag or anything, but aren’t we missing some people here? Like, maybe, the mayor? Shouldn’t he get to see her before, like, half of us?” She got her answer from several different people, all of whom were quick to say that he was too busy working to come stop by, an answer she accepted with a few nods. “Makes sense! Not going to complain that I’m here, after all!”

“Yes, well, I might complain if that regular customer of yours comes walking in here. Totally heard him come in, and boy am I glad he left. Last thing I need is him leering at my baby.” Severa scoffed, holding Lunabel just a bit closer to her. “He’s so weird, Cynthia. Thought you had better taste in people.”

The brown-haired woman dropped her hands to behind her back, looking down in shame at her friend’s scathing remark. “He’s not weird, he’s just shy. But once I got to know him better, and once I learned he’s been such great friends with one of my great friends,” she nudged one shoulder in Owain’s direction, “I had to give him a chance! He only came today because he wanted to share some love with the baby and the baby’s dad, since it is both their birthdays today!”

It was a fact that Brady had completely forgotten about the day in the rush of everyone after his mother entering the room, and he looked away from his wife and child to see the balloons he was still holding, the ones that were wishing _him_ a happy birthday. After the day he’d had so far, that sort of reminder was a welcome one—especially when coupled with the fact that this day was just the beginning of wonderful things to come.

* * *

The first few days after Lunabel’s birth went by rather quickly, as the new parents had to adjust to life with an actual child around. She was kept in the hospital for two days, just to make sure that her mild case of clubfoot was her only medical problem, and when she was released she was sent home with an absolutely tiny cast wrapped from toes to thigh on the afflicted foot. It was heartbreaking to see her, in all her newborn glory, with something so harsh on her body, but both parents knew that it was what needed to be done to get her foot into proper working condition.

As the days turned into weeks, which then turned into months, she grew and flourished, developing a personality not unlike her mother’s. She fussed whenever she wasn’t getting attention, or the attention that she wanted, and became very affectionate whenever the person holding her was the exact one that she wanted. While she acted like her mother, she most definitely looked more like her father, although as she grew her face began to look less strongly like his and more like a varied mix between the two. They were absolutely smitten with her, especially with how she was so much like them both, and she had quickly become their entire world in the time they’d had her around.

Raising her took some real sacrifices, ones that weren’t necessarily ones they had anticipated having to make. While they were plenty set up in regards to things to take care of her with, they did have to make countless trips to various doctors for her foot problem, to make sure it was properly healing. When she was several months old, she no longer needed the cast, but the plaster was replaced with a metal brace that was much more unwieldy and made putting her down almost anywhere a real challenge. With the brace on (which, as Severa insisted they follow what the doctors said to the letter, it was on almost every hour of every day), she couldn’t exactly make herself mobile, and so while she was trying her hardest to teach herself to roll over, she couldn’t do it without some real help.

She could, however, sit up on her own after some struggle, and from there she found a way to get herself onto her knees, but that was where her progress stopped. As long as she had the brace on her foot, she wasn’t going to make herself mobile, and that was a fact the infant refused to accept, crying frequently when her attempts at moving were thwarted. Depending on which parent was around when she’d try this, she would either be comforted with encouraging words or picked up and coddled until she stopped crying; the second one became a common reaction, especially around almost any other family member or friend of the parents who had permission to watch the little girl.

Lunabel’s first birthday was a big deal to everyone, but because of the day of the week it fell on, and the fact that everyone that would be interested in celebrating the occasion was busy, the actual celebration was quite small and more intimate to only the family. Neither parent lamented the fact, as she wasn’t going to remember anything so she wouldn’t need to have the giant amount of effort put into a celebration for her, but they told each other that her next birthday would be celebrated properly and with as many people, if not more, as the baby shower for her had.

For a year, during which they watched their baby girl grow into an inquisitive toddler who tried exploring everything with what limited motion she had with her brace on, the parents planned out their daughter’s perfect birthday party. They took notice of all her interests, all her favorite things, and tried to find a way to incorporate everything into the party, a hard task when Lunabel would change what she loved seemingly every day. By the time her second birthday was upon them, they felt they had everything as good as it was going to get, with a few surprises for everyone involved that would be appreciated.

The party took place in the backyard of Brady’s parents’ house, which was the most spacious place they could think of. Maribelle was more than thrilled to have her granddaughter’s party at her place, and Chrom made it a point to find the time to be around for the events. They were both caught very off-guard when, coming to set up the party, they saw that Severa was holding in her arms a Lunabel without a brace on her foot, looking very excited about the occasion. “What’s this? I thought she still always had to have the brace on,” Maribelle commented, reaching out for her grandbaby. “Are you telling me that she no longer has to be bound somewhere by that foul contraption?”

“Not all the time, yeah. She hasn’t always had it on for a while, but as of a week ago, she doesn’t have to wear it unless we feel she needs it.” Beaming over at his daughter, Brady was caught by surprise when his mother changed from reaching for the child to wrapping him in a hug. “Uh, Ma, what’s this all about?”

“It’s just as much your birthday as it is hers, my darling son. Just thought you would appreciate a bit of attention.” She squeezed him tightly for just a second, before going back to trying to get Lunabel from Severa’s arms. “And now it’s time for me to give my precious granddaughter several birthday kisses and hugs!”

The little girl’s face lit up, kicking her feet independently of each other while reaching up to grab one of the little pigtails made of her blue hair. “Mamaw-belle!” she screeched, beginning to land kicks in Severa’s side to drive her mother to pass her off to the older woman, which she did without any hesitation. “Mamaw-belle hi!”

“You certainly have my name down, don’t you, sweetie? What a smart little two-year-old you are!” Kissing the top of the girl’s head, Maribelle sighed happily. “You’re easily the best child your parents could have been given, and I am so proud to be able to call you my granddaughter.” The girl giggled and tilted her head back to plant a messy kiss on her grandmother’s jaw, which made Maribelle even happier. “That’s right, show me this love.”

“Do I get any love as well?” Standing at Maribelle’s side, Chrom smiled down at Lunabel, who stopped with her kisses long enough to look at him, scrunch her face up as she shook her head, and resume the kisses she had been giving. “Oh, it was worth a shot. Can’t get that girl away from Maribelle for anything.”

“That’s because I actually spend time with her and she loves me,” Maribelle replied, nudging Chrom with her shoulder without disrupting the girl in her arms. “The same can’t be said about you, on the first part. She loves you as well, as she should.”

He nudged her back, nearly toppling her over with the force of his push; while it could have gotten ugly, as evidenced by the dual gasps the child’s parents let out when they saw her almost be thrown to the ground in Maribelle’s attempt to not fall, it ended up okay. However, it did not end with Chrom getting his hands on his granddaughter, which seemed to have been the entire reason for the interaction in the first place. “Can we, like, go start setting up for this party or something?” Severa asked, her hand over her chest as she was still trying to calm her heart after the scare. “I don’t think I can handle seeing that ever happen again, and if we just set her down and let her do whatever while we’re setting up, it definitely won’t get to happen.”

“Uh, yeah, we can set up, I guess.” Chrom made himself look a little sorry for what had happened, especially when he saw just how panicked the younger parents were. Maribelle wasn’t so happy about the idea, because it meant she had to put the child down and let her roam around free, but the beauty of watching the little girl take shaky steps that relied far too heavily on her good foot was more than enough to make up for things. The setup for the party didn’t take nearly as long as anyone had anticipated it would, because four sets of hands and one well-behaved little girl made for quick work, but that worked out in their favor as the first guests showed up far earlier than had been expected.

At least, that’s how it seemed, but with the quick way they were moving and talking, it was made painfully clear that Lucina and Laurent had no intentions of actually staying. When asked about where they needed to get to by everyone present, Lucina rolled her eyes and replied, “We’ve got to get over to a research library to work on some important school stuff. You know, college kids and their massive papers and all that.” She gave a flippant wave of her hand, while Laurent added something about how it was _his_ massive paper they were working on. “Yeah, that part might be important to add. We have to get into the highly theoretical stuff that even his mom’s library doesn’t cover.”

“Then why did ya come by if ya weren’t plannin’ on stayin’?” Brady asked, before being enveloped in a tight hug by his sister. He sighed as she rested her head on the side of his shoulder. “Let me guess, you’re here because it’s my birthday too, and ya wanted to say somethin’ about it.”

“Not quite, you big oaf. I’m here because of you and my niece both, but the present we have with us today’s more for you and Severa than Lunabel. Although it definitely does involve her.” At the sound of her name, the little girl came hobbling over, attaching herself to her aunt’s leg and screeching in excitement. “Yes, yes, sweet child, I love you too. Now get off of me so that we can get the last picture we need.”

“Last picture…?” It took a second of remembering what the gift that Lucina was speaking of was, but when she remembered it, Severa quickly grabbed Lunabel off of her leg and got her to stand absolutely still right in front of the backside of the house. While Laurent took the picture with his camera and printed it where he stood, Lucina stopped hugging her brother and grabbed the gigantic baby book out of the bag she had brought to the party with her, opening it to the very last page of many that had been added over the past two years. When the picture was printed, he handed it to her, and she slid it into place on that final page, closing the book up and putting it back into the bag, which she then handed over to Severa, who looked at it with a fair amount of disbelief. “You’re kidding. All this time and you’ve been holding onto that book for this?”

Lucina and Laurent looked between each other, silently arguing with one another over who was to explain what had happened with their originally-intended baby shower gift. He was the one who ended up winning the honor of explanation: “You see, we got rather wrapped up in documenting everything for you. It was an experience, doing the research and asking the proper questions to be able to fill in the pages of the book. There may still be some blank pages, sure, but if the time comes to fill those in, we will be willing to do the job. After all, as Lucina has said to me many times, neither parent would be eager to document such events, so why not let those who are simultaneously invested in the child while having no intentions of having children of their own do it?”

“So thanks for being creepy and caring, I guess?” Severa swung the bag around a bit, noting how heavy it was. “Seriously though, thanks. I can tell how much care you guys put into this. We’ll definitely treasure it almost as much as we treasure Luna herself.”

“Which is a lot, if ya couldn’t tell. Thanks, Lucy, and thanks too, Laurent, for doin’ this for us.” Brady took the bag from Severa, not expecting it to be as heavy as it was. “What did ya put in this thing? It probably actually weighs more than Luna does, which isn’t sayin’ much but it’s still sayin’ somethin’.”

The pair didn’t respond to the question directly, just reminding everyone that they did need to leave to go do their research, so goodbyes were said, happy birthdays were wished, and they were gone, leaving the original five people standing there once more. “I still cannot believe you two gave this child such a beautiful and perfect name just to shorten it and ruin its beauty,” Maribelle commented, shaking her head at what she was saying. “You gave her the name for a reason, so use it properly.”

“Sorry Ma, but that’s just not how it works. Callin’ her Lunabel all the time gets kind of annoyin’, especially when it’s so easy to shorten the name.” Brady happened to look in his mother’s direction at the exact moment she shot a death glare at him, and he sighed. “Ma, I know, you’re so in love with us namin’ her somewhat after you, but we don’t have to use that part of her name all the time.”

“And if I’m okay with calling her Luna, and I’m the one who had to sacrifice so much to bring her into this world, you can suck it up and be okay with it too.” Her every word was filled with biting sarcasm, and Severa knew that she wasn’t going to be appreciated for talking like that, so she picked Lunabel up and held her to protect herself from being attacked for what was said. In all honesty, if the child hadn’t been grabbed, Maribelle was going to make things a bit physical and get in Severa’s face, but she thought better of it when she saw her smiling granddaughter in the way.

“What’s going on back here?” It was a female voice speaking over a chorus of chatter, as the backyard began to burst with the guests for the party. Everyone turned to look to see who was speaking, and based on the way Lunabel started squealing and had to be actually set down so she could run the best she could over to the speaker, being picked up by her and hugged very closely, it was someone well-wanted. “Oh, hello affectionate one. Aren’t you just the liveliest child today?”

“Today? She’s always got some real spunk in her, just like her mom.” A second voice entered the fray, and when that speaker appeared from behind the first one, just the sight of him was enough to get Severa almost squealing as loud as her daughter had been. She didn’t run over to the newcomers, however, because getting near the first person was not something she wanted to do; the second person understood this and, after ruffling Lunabel’s pigtails a bit, came over to stand at his daughter’s side, opening his arms for a hug, an offer she took with no hesitation. “Nice to see you too, Severa. Glad to know you still love me.”

Despite her typical aversion to showing her emotions, Severa let her voice crack and waver as she said, “I couldn’t ever not love you, Daddy. I’m so glad to see you not in jail again.”

“I’m glad too, trust me.” Gaius smiled, as he and his daughter shared a quick hug. When they parted, he chuckled. “This old man can’t do another nickel, not when there’s so much to live for out here.” He turned his head to see where Cordelia was still standing, talking to Lunabel while the little girl tried her best to answer questions. “All these important ladies in my life need me around, you know.”

“We’ve always needed you around, but…thanks for being willing to try to stay out for us now. I mean, you’ve got to get to know my baby better than you knew me.” Severa’s lip was wobbling as she spoke, and she buried her face in her father’s neck, bursting into tears when she knew she was hidden. “I’m so happy to see you not behind glass, Daddy!”

“Gaius, have you made the poor girl cry? For shame,” Cordelia teasingly said, walking over to his side. “She’s gone through so much because of you, couldn’t you have tried harder not to let this happen to her right now?”

He shrugged, before seeing how close he was to his grandbaby that he hadn’t actually met outside of being on the wrong side of glass in the jail. “Could have, sure, but it happened and that’s just how it is. Now let me get a kiss on little Lunabel real quick, will you?” Cordelia obliged, lifting the girl a bit so she could be kissed on the cheek by Gaius, only to return his affection by sloppily kissing him on his cheek. “That’s how I thought that would go. What a great day, and a great way, to meet my granddaughter.”

“So he’s allowed to kiss her but I’m not,” Chrom grumbled, having to turn his attention away from what was happening with Lunabel to keep himself from getting angry about it. That was ultimately for the best, as there were plenty of party guests who needed to be directed on where to place their gifts and what else to do. This also allowed for him to learn that several guests were still missing, despite how many had shown up already, including the ones bringing arguably the most important part of the celebration.

Even without those guests there, the party did have to start, and so it did, everyone in attendance getting their chance to talk to either of the people celebrating their birthday that day, although most of the attention was on the younger of the two. Lunabel thrived on being the center of everyone’s attention, always being willing to talk to anyone who would listen, and she loved being held by anyone with open arms. She mostly repeated things that she had overheard, sure, but she had fun doing it and people were entertained by listening to her. “Ha-a-ap bi-i-i-irf-ay!” she would repeat over and over again as she was talking, pointing to herself multiple times as she drew the words out longer and longer.

It was adorable, everyone could admit, but it was also taking away from being able to ask the girl about her foot and how well it was working for her, although by the way she would run around the yard and scream if anyone chased her, it was clear that her foot was just fine. At one point, while she was running by the gate to the yard, someone entered and completely ignored where she was running, tripping over her and landing face-first on the ground. It brought the party to a halt, especially when Lunabel realized she’d been tripped over and could cry to get attention. Her father picked her up, shushing her as he did, while her mother went to help the bigger person who had tripped—but was blocked from doing so by a reddish-haired man who quickly helped the clumsy guest to her feet.

“Gods, did you two really need to make this kind of appearance here?” Severa asked, looking at the couple who had made this dramatic entrance. “Cynthia falling on her face, that makes sense, but I so could have helped her up. Didn’t need you swooping in to save the day, Inigo. Thanks for nothing.”

“No, thanks for everything. The last thing we could need is for you to have damaged the ring on my precious Cynthia’s finger by harshly helping her up.” He beamed at what he had said, while Cynthia blushed and started giggling and Severa went completely slack-jawed, looking back and forth between the two for a moment before throwing her hands up in the air and walking away. “Yes, that’s right, you walk away from us. I would say you have no understanding of true love, but if that were the case we wouldn’t be gathered here today!”

“Maybe we could have announced our engagement news a bit better, but still, that was so adorable.” Cynthia lay her head on Inigo’s shoulder once she was completely and properly to her feet. “I’m totally okay with how you said that, though. Totally.”

“Move out of the way of the gate! We’ve got something crucial to everyone’s enjoyment of today!” It was Owain’s voice from in the front yard, and not even a second after Inigo and Cynthia stepped to the side away from where they had been, he came into the backyard carrying a large cake box, Noire following behind him with a much smaller box in her hands. “We come bearing gifts in the form of baked goods!”

Whether everyone was supposed to or not, they all began cheering at the arrival of the birthday cake (or cakes, as it turned out being). The larger one was for everyone to eat there at the party, and it was decorated simply with the words “Happy Birthday” and a few small frosting flourishes, while the smaller cake was for Brady, Severa, and Lunabel when they were at home, and it was still decorated very simply but actually had names on it. They were fine with being given something smaller to take with them, but something seemed off about the situation. “Doesn’t Noire normally love decoratin’ these things? Why does it look like she’s gotten tired of doin’ that?” Brady asked to Owain, as he was unboxing the big cake and setting it out in the designated spot. “Don’t tell me she’s grown out of bakin’.”

“No, Noire still very much loves to bake, and she’s doing it even more nowadays for some reason. I haven’t noticed her angry side coming out more than usual, mind you, but she’s been baking more and more. Although, honestly, I’m not sure what she’s doing with everything she’s making.” Owain stopped what he was doing and stroked his chin in thought for a few moments, before shrugging and going back to his unboxing. “She hasn’t baked this much in a long time. It’s almost like she’s got someone as ravenous for sweets as Severa used to be to feed all over again.”

“Well it’s definitely not Sev she’s givin’ these things to, so no idea where it’s all goin’. Maybe she’s just tossin’ it once she’s baked it?” At the same time, both guys looked over at where Noire was standing, talking in her normal soft manner to Severa while sneaking little bits of cake into Lunabel’s mouth. “Or maybe she’s keepin’ it handy to give to my little girl! I’m going to go teach her a lesson real quick, Owain. She can’t be feedin’ Luna like that. Givin’ her too many sweets when she’s excited like she is today isn’t goin’ to end well.”

“Have fun telling her to stop, dear cousin. You know she loves feeding any mouth she can find to accept her cakes.” Owain laughed, but Brady didn’t find what he was saying funny in the slightest. As he headed over to where Noire and Severa were standing, he had a moment where he thought about not stopping what was happening, but he quickly cast that thought aside as it was a bad idea.

It was also a bad idea to try and stop things, however. While Noire was more than okay with accepting guilt and realizing that she was doing something she shouldn’t be, Severa got upset that Brady was stepping in while she was handling the situation. “I’m fine with Luna getting a little bit of cake. It’s something Noire baked. It’s not going to hurt her.”

“Well, in that case, I may have some more for her…” Pulling out a rather large bag of cake pieces from her purse, Noire quickly made a new friend in Lunabel, who eagerly took the cake and shoved it in her mouth, more excited about the sweet food than anything else. For the next hour or so, she was constantly taking pieces of cake and either eating them herself or offering them around to the people at the party, which was all in good fun until she gave up on sharing and just kept eating it on her own.

By the time it came time to have the actual birthday cake, she’d eaten a good third of what had been in that bag, and she wasn’t going to not be given a piece of her birthday cake. She simply devoured what she was given and went to beg for a second piece, but was denied because a girl her size didn’t need that much frosting and sugar running through her system—she stood there and screamed until someone gave her exactly what she wanted. It was clear that she had inherited the same sweet tooth that Gaius and Severa had, but while they were able to actually handle the sweets they indulged in, Lunabel wasn’t quite able to do that at her age.

This led to her quickly succumbing to a stomachache that left her sitting in her mom’s lap whining about how bad she felt as she tried opening presents. The very first gift she opened, a giant stuffed animal bought for her by her Mamaw-belle, was enough to get her excited again, but the excitement came at a price. She looked at the bear and grinned, and turned to say something about it to her mom, but when she opened her mouth her grin absolutely vanished as she started throwing up all over her mom, who screamed and tried pushing her off onto the grass. Everyone around watched in horror, but none were more horrified than Brady, who had tried to keep this from happening, and Severa, who had just had this happen all over her.

Once Lunabel stopped throwing up and was laying on the ground, whimpering about her stomach hurting, Severa got to her feet and looked down in horror at what was covering her, running inside the house to find somewhere to clean herself off. That left Brady to pick his now-crying daughter up and take her to get cleaned as well, not an easy task when she was squirming while in his grasp and making the mess on her worse. As Severa had ran into the one bathroom on the lower floor of the house, he had to carefully take Lunabel upstairs to the bathroom located next to his old bedroom, locking the door behind him as he sat the girl on the counter and started running the sink water.

“This is why we don’t let you have all those sweet things, Luna,” he said to her as he grabbed a washcloth and soaked it with water, using it to start wiping her face. “Next time someone feeds ya from a big bag of sweets, tell them no. Ya don’t want to get sick like this every again, do ya?”

“N-no,” the girl replied, tears still streaming down her face. Her hands were clutching her stomach as if it was still bothering her. “Hu-urts, Dada! Hurts!”

He hated seeing her miserable, but there was nothing he could do about it. “I know, Luna, but it’s your fault for takin’ all that cake. Can’t help ya when you’re the one makin’ the bad choices like that.”

“Dada pwease, hurts!” Lunabel hiccupped, scaring him into stepping back from her a bit, not wanting her to start throwing up on him as well. When she didn’t, he came closer again, continuing with cleaning her off.

All was well until there was a series of rapid knocks at the door. “Brady, dearest, is everything okay in there?” Maribelle asked, trying to open the door to enter but finding that the room was locked. “Is Lunabel going to be okay? Everyone outside is worried about you and her both, this happening on your birthday and whatnot…”

He sighed, looking at his reflection in the mirror, noticing the pale red tone to his skin from being outside all day, clashing heavily with his messy blue hair. His eyes tracked down to where he could see the reflection of Lunabel’s little blue head, and despite the reason they were in there, he smiled at her. “Yeah, Ma, everything’s fine in here. Go worry about Sev, please, and we’ll be out soon. Promise.”

“If you’re sure you’ve got this handled, I might just take up your suggestion and check on poor Severa. Perhaps I could assist her by finding something less soiled for her to wear?” Maribelle tried the door handle one last time, still finding it locked, and she could soon be heard going down the stairs to do as she said, leaving them there in the bathroom in silence.

“Ha-a-ap bi-i-i-irf,” Lunabel feebly sang, still clearly not feeling good but trying to bring some happiness into her father’s life. And Brady actually burst into tears at the sound.


End file.
